Once a Man
by Tamlin
Summary: Once, Hojo was just a man. He thought he had it all: a good job, a nice home, good friends, and a lover. How did he become a monster, and is he really that bad? Hojo's point of view of what happened before, during, and after Nebilheim. VincentHojo.
1. Confession

Disclaimer for this and all subsequent chapters: Final Fantasy it the property of Square Enix/ Square Soft. I do not own Final Fantasy VII or any material related to it. I do own a copy of the game, but that's about it.

**Once a Man**

By Tamlin

**Chapter One: ****Confession**

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I hate her.

I just want that clear from the beginning. She took everything from me and I hate her for that.

She took everything.

And she did it with a sweet, innocent-seeming smile.

And I, I who wanted nothing more than to salvage something out of the wreckage she left behind, got the entire blame.

I can't argue with that judgment. Who else is there to blame? I should have known. I should have tried to stop her. I am the one who became the monster. Even now, if I was to look in the mirror, that's all that stares back at me, a monster.

But once, I was a man. That's all, just a man who happened to be in love. I had everything I had ever dreamed of having: a good job, good friends, respect of my peers, and even the most precious of all things, a true, loyal, loving companion. I had everything and she destroyed them all. All except the job. Lucky me that I was employed by Shinra, who's morals only rival hers for utter corruption. The perfect place for a monster to crawl into its layer and spend decades licking its wounds.

Ah, I see the doubt in your eyes.

I don't blame you. I sometimes don't believe me either. Sometimes it's easier not to remember and to just let those memories fester in the bleakest, most barren part of my soul. Far easier for the heat, the pain, and the blind dictates of science to blank out my days and devour those tiny scraps of my soul she left behind.

But I want someone to know. You see, she could come back. That crystal won't hold her forever. She knew that when she sealed herself into it. The Chronicle of Ages is to be where Chaos will be born when he comes to destroy all life on the Planet. Now think, who is in the middle of that crystal?

Come now, put a bit more thought into it.

She's there…waiting for him…waiting to be reborn, infused with the purest form of the Chaos gene…waiting to be released again onto this poor, abused Planet.

Why? Why can't anyone see her true face except me?

Of course no one believes me. I don't blame them. I'm a monster. After what I did to the one I loved best in this world, how could I fail to be anything less? I am a monster, pitiless, cruel, insane. I have heard it all hissed at my back, and even on occasion to my face. It doesn't bother me anymore. Why should it. I know what I am.

Monster.

Monsters don't cry.

I haven't cried since her.

I wish I could. I wish I could cry. Just once. To show that I am sorry.

And I am.

I'm sorry Vincent.

I loved you.

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Yes, this is very short, but it's the set up to the story.Later chapters will get longer.

Please review!

AN: I've always had a few doubts about a woman that would seal herself away in a crystal that a demon would be born out of, so this is me exploring those doubts. Besides, I love trying to look at things from different perspectives, to see another side to a story.


	2. First Impression

**Once a Man**

**Chapter 2: First Impression**

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You would think it would start with her.

I won't give her the credit. It started with him.

I had just been promoted to the assistant to the director of Shinra Science and Research. It was a position that scientists around the Planet vied for, and after years of self-denial, hard work, and, I'm not too proud to admit, sheer luck, I achieved my goal.

Professor Gast was the director and after his previous assistant retired to Costa del Sol to soak up any stray tequila that might cross his path, he chose me. It was, I thought at the time, a lucky break. After living in Bone Village freezing my toes off, living in a rat infested skull that gave me nightmares of becoming dinosaur food, and eating nothing but half cooked ramen for three years, believe me, living in even a hell hole like Midgar seemed like paradise. Suddenly, I had a small, warm apartment; money for decent meals (I could even go out to eat once in awhile); a real radio that picked up real music instead of the scratchy babbling of Ice Pack Sammy, Bone Village's own resident eccentric who spent days rambling about the horror of razor burn; and, miracle of miracle, a workplace that was heated.

Not only that, but professionally I was suddenly catapulted to the pinnacle of my profession. Universities were suddenly leaving messages pleading with me to come speak to them. The same people who would look down their noses at my attendance at one of their conferences, now heaped praise on me and started leaving messages begging for a moment of my time even before I had signed my name on my contract.

It was heady stuff.

Oh, you might be asking yourself why I didn't covet Gast's position. That's rather simple. Yes, the man was paid an obscene amount, and yes, it does seem at the surface that those very things I was so pleased with were nothing to him, but he paid for those privileges. He lived at Shinra. His apartment was beyond luxurious. It even denied the term palatical, but what good was it if he only saw it as he passed through to fall on the bed? He lived for Shinra. He had no time for family, friends, hobbies. All his time, and I do mean all of it, was consumed by the company. He had everything men strive for, and no time to appreciate it. As young as I was at the time, I knew I didn't want that kind of life.

Looking at myself today, you might not believe this, but at one time I loved life. I loved a good party, sitting at a bar with good friends drinking, laughing, and joking the night away. I loved lazy afternoons lounging at a café, talking with no more than a half baked theory and a pot of good tea between me and a colleague. I loved sitting in a comfortable chair reading a rainy day away with my feet propped up and a lamp glowing, warm and golden, over my shoulder. I loved keeping company with a beautiful young woman or a beautiful young man. I loved caring for someone, giving and receiving the small gestures of affection, waking up and knowing that I loved someone and someone loved me in return. I loved being alive.

I had plans, dreams. I wanted a companion, a real home, and perhaps, someday, children. Those normal, everyday things that people strive for were once my goals too. Ah, how quickly those dreams died. They died hard too. I clung to them long after they had withered in my hands leaving me clutching the desiccated, crumbling remains, desperate to try to breathe life into them again.

As head of Shinra Science and Research, Gast's position left no time for all those things. I truly didn't want it. Later, when I did get it, I still didn't want it, but by that time, I had nothing else. When you've lost everything, you don't care if someone hands you garbage. At least it's something to hold besides your own pain.

So, there I was, strolling around my new life, gawking like a tourist, when he walked in.

Let me say this. He was stunning. I mean that literally. He slammed a door into my head. You see, I was trying to get a paper clip that had slid off a stack of research and the slippery thing had skittered over to the door. I was bending down to retrieve it and he chose that moment to make his entrance into my life. To say I was less than thrilled with a bodyguard whose first action was to give me a concussion goes without explanation. Oh yes, I noted the slender body, the lovely face, the fine boned hands, the exquisite, tilted, amber eyes, but truthfully, I was too busy whimpering under a hastily acquired bag of ice to appreciate his attributes to the fullest.

We joked about it later, laughing as we curled together in the night.

"You made quite the impression." I would say.

"On your head." He'd laugh, running his fingers through my hair. "Glad I didn't hurt anything too vital."

I'd snort, playing at being offended. "Are you talking to me, Turk boy."

"Yes I am, geek." He'd smile a smile that always made me smile back.

"Geek? Who are you calling geek, cannon fodder?" I'd be grinning like an idiot, feeling the days tension melting away into his warmth.

"Oh, did I say geek? I meant nerd."

Not the wittiest of repartee, but it would be late, we'd be tired, and it reminded us how little beginnings could grow into fond memories. But that came later.

You wouldn't want me to skip over things, would you?

I thought not.

So, where was I? Oh, yes, the door, my head.

I had just put my fingers on that paper clip and he swung the door open. I suppose I would have been better off if I hadn't heard the click of the latch and turned my head to look. The door knob wouldn't have impacted with my temple and the damage would have been somewhat lessened. I suppose, and I would find this out later, I would have been even luckier if he hadn't been irritated about being assigned as bodyguard to a scientist. He, thanks to his late father, had a healthy loathing of all science related people, and being him, and being irritated, he swung the door open a bit harder than was called for.

He was very apologetic. Nearly killing the person you are assigned to protect is actually frowned on in the Turks. They have a lot of, shall we say, unique habits, but they took their assignments seriously. When he realized that there was a moaning body behind the door that greatly resembled the person he was assigned to, he handled it well. I was quickly shuffled off to a nearby couch with an ice pack for my head and a physician jittering nervously about being near an irritated Turk.

If you believe the rumors, you would expect me to say I hated him from that moment and started plotting how to get my revenge.

Actually, I was amused. I was also in pain, but watching him stand there glowering at the poor physician was really funny. It wasn't like it was her fault that he'd nearly brained me with a door. Yet, there he stood glaring, fingering his oversized gun, and shifting about in short, sharp motions. The poor woman was nearly in tears.

And yes, I had a sense of humor, and no, it wasn't a warped, sadistic sense of humor where I laughed only if some poor soul was screaming in unbelievable agony. Honesty, the rumors…

Ah, I'm getting distracted again.

After awhile the throbbing in my head subsided somewhat, and the physician was allowed to retreat to her department to update her résumé and dream of working someplace where Turks didn't roam the halls. He stoically escorted me back to my lab and proceeded to hover. He was an accomplished hoverer. He managed to simultaneously be directly in my way, yet completely out of my way. It was grating. It sent quivers of tension up my back.

You will probably note that Turks stay away from me now. I have dedicated a great deal of time discouraging Turkish hovering. After her, I was a bit more direct about my preference. I figured that if I couldn't have him hover over me, I was not going to let some half-wit take his place. Really, the Turks Tseng has allowed into the organization. Disgraceful. Absolutely disgraceful. I blame Veld, actually. He let the organization slide during his last few years. He should have retired.

So, he hovered and I worked.

You might notice here that I haven't given you dialog. This isn't a mistake. He didn't talk. I was actually wondering if I'd been assigned a mute. Mind you I wasn't exactly chatty. Between the pain in my temple and the residual pain from traumatized jaw muscles, talking was low on my to-do list. I was basically just trying to get my work done as quickly as possible so I could go home, take many pain killers, and collapse on my couch.

It wasn't until Professor Gast came in to the room that I realized that my hoverer could talk. I was at my desk, trying to get my bleary eyes to focus on a report. -Ah, vanity. I was still resisting getting glasses.- My Turk was frowning at my back, no doubt wishing to be far from my presence, and all was quickly degenerating into a complete waste of a good day, when Gast decided to grace us with his almighty and beneficent presence.

You might note the sarcasm here.

At the time, I was too naive to note just what a bastard he was. I still respected him then. I still considered him one of the top scientists of our age. I grew out of it fast, but fresh from Bone Village, I had stars in my eyes. I believed in him.

Oh, you listen to that failed clone, or even –and you don't know how it pains me to say this- him, and you will think Gast was a great person who strove for the betterment of the planet and the good of all man and woman kind.

He was a complete bastard. That ancient, the pure blood, do you honestly think she was willing? She was a cringing wreck by the time I killed her dearest beloved. He had hunted her down, experimented on her, raped her to impregnate her with his child, forced her to marry him so he would have control of the baby, and made it all complete by having her call him "darling." Honestly, it made my stomach turn. People blame me for her death, but she was already dying from his experiments. I did try to save her –not too hard, to be honest- but the long term damage done to her internal organs from his clumsy mako injections had been irreparable. She died of liver failure on a train platform in the slums. He daughter, the last Cetra, would have followed her mother. I managed to mitigate most of the damage, and her young body had a lot more recuperative powers than her mother's, but she had only a year or two left to live when that idiot clone "freed" her from my care. Pity that, I was closing in on a cure. Unhappily, the cure would have been fatal for the wolf-cat.

Ah, choices, choices…

Also, who do you think came up with the idea of mako reactors? I sure didn't. I specialized in biochemistry. The amount of engineering that went into the creation of those monstrosities was completely beyond me. Oh, I could use them, but only Gast had the required knowledge and the research staff to create them. But he gets hailed as a great man whose heart wanted only the best for the Planet, and I get loathed.

Life's a bitch.

Anyway, in he came to smile benevolently at my aching self and my stalwart shadow.

"Hello Vincent."

I looked up surprised. _Vincent? He has a name?_

My hoverer gave my boss a short, polite nod. "Good day, director."

I must have looked even more surprised. _Will wonders never cease?_ _He talks_

Gast came over and gave my Turk a fatherly pat on the shoulder. "I heard there was a bit of an accident."

My Turk, Vincent, gave a serious nod. "My fault, sir. I opened the door and didn't realize he was behind it till it was too late."

Gast, the wonderful, gave a warm, comforting chuckle. "Not many people spend time idling behind doors."

I blushed in embarrassment, not sure how to take this teasing. Gast had that effect on me at that time. Hero worship. Really, I wish I could go back in time and slap myself.

"Sir," I managed to get my sore jaw to work. "I don't idle behind doors."

He came over and gave me a gentle pat on the back. "Oh, don't take things so seriously."

Now, looking back, I'm surprised he didn't pat me on the head and give me a doggie treat. People really were little more than animals to him.

He looked over at the work I was finishing up. It was an initial report on the feasibility of genetic modification to enhance military performance. I was a bit leery of the methodology, and the ethics, of the project. Oh, I got over that in time; she was a good teacher. However, at that time, I didn't like the idea of taking military personnel and experimenting on them. If you tick off the military, who are you going to lean on when enemies attack?

I had seen too much, growing up in Wutai. Gordo, who at that time was still a young man, had problems controlling the military. His father had been a strong-arm dictator, and had expanded Wutai's boundaries onto the western continent, annexing the area around Rocket Town and making a few overtures about "liberating" Nibelheim from the barbarous masses. Gordo was overpowered by his generals when he first came to the throne. The military had its agenda, and Gordo basically handed them everything they wanted. If they wanted to raze a village or two off the map to improve civic mindfulness, Gordo nodded and made a few patriotic speeches. If they wanted to parade massive weapons through town to bully the local populace into meek submission, Gordo provided the flags. A childhood of anxiously wondering when the soldiers would come and burn your house down tends to stay with you.

But enough.

He looked over my report and gave me a paternal smile. "Take the rest of the day off." He turned to Vincent. "Make sure he gets home okay, and see him settled."

My Turk nodded and gave him a salute. "Yes, sir."

Before I was ready, I had my coat wrapped around my shoulders, by briefcase scooped off the floor by my Turk, and was bustled out of the office and out of the building.

Hindsight being what it is, I am somewhat suspicious of Vincent's abrupt appearance in my life. Shinra didn't waste money and Vincent was a very valuable employee. He would, in a matter of months, be promoted to the head of his department. My position, extravagant as it seemed to me at the time, didn't even rate one of the luxurious apartments Shinra provided for their top people. My safety was hardly in danger, but there was Vincent trundling me along the sidewalk to my little apartment like an overanxious nanny.

And did he talk to me? No.

He was cold, efficient, and by the time we reached my home, I felt he really needed to lighten up, get a life, buy a pet hamster, or something. There was a definite lack of life in his life.

He never smiled, never paused to look at the myriad small beauties that I still gaped at, nothing. He just stoically trudged along, suspiciously eyeing everyone in sight, and silently looming at my shoulder like my own personal death angel.

He scared the shit out of the little girl in the downstairs apartment. I spent weeks afterwards reassuring her that Vincent wasn't going to shoot her, her parents, her goldfish, or her plants. Vincent apparently was allowed to shoot her big brother, but I failed to mention that to him.

I stood at my door, that first day, and listened to her crying to her mother about the terrible man with the gun, and fumbled for my key while Vincent made himself useful by standing behind me being menacing. After dropping my keys a couple of times, nearsightedly peering at each key, and cursing myself for not color coding them, I finally got the door open and stumbled into my apartment.

Vincent politely shoved me the rest of the way through the door and strode off to make a security sweep of the place while I wobbled to the kitchen for a tall glass of water to take my pain medication and recover from a day of being in his care. He spent time poking here and there, scrutinizing everything for hidden explosives or some such. I didn't care at that point. If he wanted to inspect rolls of toilet paper, I figured it kept him from hovering, looming, or silently standing at my side like an ill-omened buzzard eyeing a stray chocobo chick. I had just stretched out on my sofa and settled my aching head down on a pillow when he came back to stare ominously down on me. I tried to ignore him, but he, as I pointed out, was a master hoverer. I could feel him hovering over me spreading gloom throughout my warm, cozy home.

I opened my eyes to meet his look. "Yes?"

"Your apartment has too many points where security could easily be breached." He informed me.

"Good for my apartment." I closed my eyes wishing him and the rest of the Turk organization away. At that point, I really thought if all Turks were as anal retentive as Vincent, they should all go to Costa del Sol and get laid.

He sighed. Over the time I knew Vincent, I learned his vocabulary of sighs. He had one for nearly every possible occasion. He had sighs that meant: you are a dumb ass; or you dress like a dork; or you ate the last cookie again, didn't you; or give me back the covers; or, the one I was most favored with, why haven't I shot you yet. This one, even to my beginner ears, sounded like the first.

I opened my eyes to give him the best glare I could summon at that point in time. "Same to you."

He, surprise, surprise, frowned down at me. "I will have to request that you be moved to a more secure location."

He made my head ache, both literally and figuratively, so I closed my eyes again. "Go away."

"I have been assigned to you till the end of the work day." Vincent said in a serious, steady voice.

Joy. Joy.

He spent a few more minutes looming, then ambled off to spread joy to other parts of my small abode. I woke up a few hours later to see him slipping out my door like a shadow. I spent a moment wondering if I was going to have his dour presence inflicted on me the next day then turned and went back to sleep.

Not only did I have him inflict himself on me the next day, but every day for months afterwards. The first thing in the morning, I would get out of bed, start brewing my coffee, and open the door to get the morning paper to find him standing there holding it. He'd come in, spread cheer and merriment through my morning routine, escort me to work, hover over me all day, then walk me home. He rarely spoke. He never smiled. He just was there.

I spent hours conjecturing on what childhood blight could cause such a personality defect, if you could even call the lack of a personality a personality defect. I argued with that semantic for awhile, whether something could be defective if it didn't exist. When I got tired of that, I moved on to imagining a plethora of horrors that could have affected him. As the months went by and I acquired friends, the fellowship of fellow Shinra employees, and even, yes, a lover, I had an informal betting pool speculating on what tragedy had happened to him. I was betting on his younger brother dying in a tragic accident. My lover, a petite blond woman named Sherrise, put money on his mother tragically sending him off to Shinra because she was going to lose the farm, and so he sacrificed his happiness so Buttercup, the old family chocobo who once saved him from a blizzard, wouldn't be stableless. My drinking buddies bet on his personality being surgically amputated in some freaky Turk initiation ceremony.

In the end, we were all disappointed when he finally vanished from my life with as much warning as he entered it. One day he was hovering. The next day, I opened the front door to find I had to get my own morning paper. He'd been promoted, and I was left to drink my coffee, read my paper, and walk to work without my gloomy side-kick.

The romantics of the world might think that I missed him. Believe it when I say I didn't. The cynics, looking at our history together, might think that his life would have been better if we had never met again. That's a more difficult response to dispose of flippantly. Looking at what was already set in motion, I could easily claim that my life would have been better if we had never met again, but his would have been immeasurably worse.

I still had the chance, you see, to dodge the proverbial bullet that she was, even then, aiming at him. If our paths hadn't crossed again, he, and he alone, would have been hit. Oh, we all would have felt the repercussions of that shot, but he would have taken the full blast of it. But I didn't dodge. I tried to step in the way, to shield him, to save him.

In the end, I just damned us both.

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Please Review! 


	3. Homecoming

AN: I have to say, it's fun to play with Hojo's vocabulary. He's almost addictive to write. I was planning on a really short, short piece, but he's just so fun that this might go on for awhile.

**Once a Man**

**Chapter 3: Homecoming**

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Peace and joy reigned in my life for nearly a year after he disappeared.

I had begun a new project for Gast, some idiotic thing for improving the military attack dogs. He had some dimwitted notion for genetically fusing them with the vlakorados from the near Bone Village. I suppose if one never met a vlakorados one might be impressed with the idea, but having spent one brilliant afternoon running madly for cover from a pair of those creatures, I could instantly see the problems with that plan. The image of the attack dogs chasing soldiers around their base camp, innocent civilians becoming dog chow, and the huge pile of warning bones that would litter each military encampment made me frown on the idea.

I was merrily, and by this time slightly cynically, poking holes in Gast's master plan. The luster had dimmed from my eyes a bit as one mindlessly vicious idea after another prowled its witless way from his desk to mine.

Do experiments on civilian detainees? Gast thought that was wonderful. He didn't want them, so why not make them useful?

Reanimate the dead with micro-circuitry? Sounds like a plan. If the soldiers complain, they have living-well dead- examples of what could happen to them, and joy of all joys, we wouldn't have to give a pension to the living dead.

Genetically engineer monsters capable of wiping out all life forms in Midgar? Perfect! Why hadn't anyone thought of it sooner? Just imagine the bliss of not having to put up with those pesky people pan-handling in the streets for food.

I have to say, if I hadn't had this early breaking in period, –not to mention her gentle tutelage- I would have been more shocked at Gast's creative use for his mako reactors later. Do you really think all those monsters popping up all over were my creations? Honestly, I don't have the time. The waste products from the reactors were pumped into the indigenous water supply. Personally, I was shocked it took as long as it did for the human mutations to start showing up.

Hm? Oh, those would be the "monsters" in the pods young Strife and Sephiroth discovered in Nibelhiem. I never did know what to do with those mutations, so I'd store them in out of the way reactors till I could find a way to put them out of their misery. It was quite tricky and with the sheer number that showed up on a monthly basis, I had to have an entire research team dedicated to mutant disposal.

Well, what did you think I did with them? Hire them as cleaning staff?

So I sat idly poking holes in Gast's pet project when he made a reappearance in my life. Oh, I'd seen him around, lurking here, looming forebodingly there during my lunch breaks in the cafeteria. I suppose he had to fit as much gloomy stalking in as he could during his spare moments; being the head of the Turks was a time consuming job. This time he had the decency not to cause me bodily injury as he slunk into my office like a cloud of menacing doom. I was, after my first stint of his bubbly presence, somewhat immune to his ominous hovering, and that day, I had a job to do, so I concentrated on my task as he loomed around my office.

It was actually entertaining. He hates being the first one to talk, believing that the first to speak is at a disadvantage. I thought it was the most boneheaded thing I ever heard when he explained it to me later, but since I was trying to maneuver him into spending a weekend with me in Mideel when he disclosed that little trinket of wisdom, I kept my mouth shut. I had my priorities and getting him into a sunny, warm, semi-private place where I could, as they so quaintly say now, jump his bones, was high on my list.

So he slunk around and I read my report.

I was in the middle of composing my response and recommendations, when he finally got tired of trying to wait me out.

"You're presence is required in Bone Village." He finally said with all the warmth and enthusiasm of a mortician breaking the news dear Uncle Roland had accidentally been alive when he's been embalmed.

I groaned inwardly. _Of all the places on the Planet, Bone Village_. "I'm rather busy. I have this project that Professor Gast has declared a top priority."

Okay, I was lying through my teeth, but fusing vlakorados DNA to canine DNA certainly beat the hell out of staying in a skull and listening to Ice Pack Sammy. I crumpled my original response up and mentally started composing another about the wonderful benefits canine-vlakorados crosses would do for army fitness. Just imagine how fit and fleet our soldiers would be after a month of running for their lives from their loyal attack dog-lizards?

"They found an abnormality in the strata." He chattered on in the same bright, cheery tone as before.

"I could send a team up there." I ambled over and tossed my report into a handy Bunsen burner flame. "I'm sure they could handle any abnormal fossils that get unearthed."

"It isn't a fossil." My font of information was just bursting at the seams.

"A rock?" I picked up a fresh report form and sat down to merrily rubber stamp Gast's moronic idea.

He sighed. I was somewhat conversant at this point in Vincent Sigh Language. This sigh meant I hate my job, but I hate you more. I felt a warm glow of satisfaction hearing it.

"A life form." Another sigh, this one meaning do me a favor and drop dead of natural causes so I won't get blamed for your much anticipated death. My day was made.

"A worm?" I filled out the first few lines of the report. "A large mole?"

"They aren't sure. That is why President Shinra and Professor Gast have decided to send you to investigate." Another sigh. Translation: I'll probably regret not killing you shortly. "I will be coming with you."

I crumpled my new report with a feeling of utter and complete dread. Bone Village was not a wondrous place to be, but being there with him? I wondered if he'd shoot me and put me out of my misery if I asked nicely. Probably not, he'd keep me alive just to see me suffer the horror of getting hugged by a sweaty, mud-coated archeologist.

"We will be leaving in an hour." He intoned dourly and bounded out of my office with all the light-hearted joy of a sewer sweeper on his way to work.

Ah well, nothing like advanced warning. I splurged and took a taxi home and quickly packed my bags, being sure to pack a small portable heater, books, a pocket video- music player I'd picked up that stored and played hundreds of songs and movies, a couple of extra thick blankets, pillows, a inflatable camping mattress pad, food, tea, and mountains of warm clothes. Only Shinra knew when I'd be released from Bone Village and Vincent, so I prepared for the worst. I was lumbering my over-packed way back to my office, dragging my luggage behind me when he reappeared.

Again, he was silent, just glaring at my stack of luggage then nodding to me and indicating I should proceed him. If I was arrogant, I would point out that they had a private helicopter waiting for me. However, things being as they were, the private helicopter was actually waiting for him, and I was along for the ride. Heading up the Turks did have a few perks such as private helicopters, upscale accommodations in civilized areas, and ability to fuck the assistant director of Shinra Research and Development Department without having it the gossip of every bored secretary in the building. Of all the perks, I never realized how wonderful the last was till he was gone and my sex life became the subject of every moronic mail-boy and paper pusher in the building, and seeing that there are an ungodly amount of those people in Shinra's main office, I honestly felt that all of Midgar knew if I so much as glanced at a woman.

He, as you could probably guess, didn't exactly liven the trip up with witty conversation and amusing bantering. He sat going through paperwork for the entire trip. I was prepared and had my earphones in and was sprawled on my seat watching a movie moments after we took off. I'm sure I garnered a few sighs, but I was already entertained, so I left him to sigh away the trip while I watched some movie about an ancient Wutain war.

Yes, if you must know I could have been doing work, but I decided that spending time in Bone Village with a surly Turk was enough work. I didn't feel like whipping out papers, which had been strategically left behind sitting innocently in my in-box, or, worse, initiating conversation with him. It was really only delaying the inevitable. The paper would still be sitting in by in-box, waiting and multiplying till I returned, and, in the end, I would have to talk to him.

Bone Village never changes. I don't even think the people change. A few outsiders, like me, might come in and stay for awhile to do some research, but most people flee the area after one night, leaving it for more entertaining, warmer, and cleaner places. Only the natives stay, and they always look the same. If someone came to me today and said the people at Bone Village were immortal, I would probably just nod. Personally, I think they've been freeze dried.

The first moment of pure unadulterated joy was when we landed in Bone Village and went to the inn. Bone Village's inn is, of course, a huge skeleton. The lobby of the inn is the skull and is presided over by Bettina Herrington. You might want to take special note of the fish in her name, because that's what sweet Bettina smelled like, a herring. Over the years that I had the honor of residing in Bone Village, I had picked up a few survival skills, such as holding my breath when Bettina hugged me. Seeing that Bettina is a loving person who believes in expressing her affection with physical displays, this skill was a well practiced one.

When we entered the lobby, Bettina recognized me and gave a whoop. "You're back!"

And she gave me a hug, which, as I pointed out, I was familiar with and dutifully held my breath till I was clear of the danger zone.

"You look good, Bettina." I smiled at her from my safe distance. And she did look good. She was one of those lucky women who aged slowly and beautifully, gradually fading from youthful prettiness, to mature attractiveness, and finally to an aged grace. The fish smell however was a huge detractor, so Bettina remained tragically single.

"You are a charmer, Hojo, a real charmer." She shook her head fondly at me. "I think Davies still has your place. Why don't you head over there and see."

That didn't surprise me. The real estate business in Bone Village wasn't just dead, it was decomposing. I could probably still go up there and settle into my boney bivouac and all that would be said is that it took me long enough to sweep the front step.

"I'll go over and see him." I would too. Bone Village Inn wasn't as comfortable as a skull, which should tell you something about the accommodations. "But my associate here needs a room."

She then noticed Vincent lurking behind me.

You can put together what happened from here. Single Bettina…stunningly beautiful Vincent… I just stepped aside and let nature take its course. Seeing Mr. Dark, Efficient, and Depressing suddenly reeling from the overpowering herring hug of Bettina Herrington was like witnessing divine retribution. I basked in its glow for awhile then mercifully saved him by asking where Davies was.

She told me his location then escorted –read dragged- the now wary Vincent off to his rooms. I took my luggage pile and went off to find Davies. He was the head foreman at Bone Village, and had his fingers into everything. Being that he was also a rather capable administrator and a good man, this had never seemed like a problem. Considering some of the other people who might replace him, it was actually a very good thing.

I was back in my long missed skull in moments. I had closed it up tight and it only took a short time to clean and settle back in. It was a one room skull with a small kitchen to one side with a stove pipe sticking out one earhole, a table with a few bleached bone chairs in the center, and a bed tucked in the back behind a dusty curtain, and a fireplace was at the other side of the skull with its flue sticking out the other earhole. A small door where the vertebrae once connected to the skull led into a microscopic bath where you could sit on the toilet, brush your teeth, and take a shower all at the same time. My furniture was still sitting where I had left it. My pots, pans, plates and battered tin cups were all dusty but present. A few cans of food lurked in the back of the cabinets like small furtive animals. It was like I'd never left.

Yippee.

In a short period of time, I was settled back into an old chair made of fossilized bones with my heater humming merrily away, a fire snapping in the fireplace, a pot of tea steeping on the stove, my bed made into a warm nest of pillows and thick blankets, and my little music player merrily playing popular tunes in the background. I have never really loved traveling by helicopter. The constant hum of the motors and the sound of the propellers wicking through the air makes my nerves feel raggedy and jangled for hours after, so a little rest was called for before I headed off to find out what thing the imbecilic diggers had found that had gotten Gast worked up enough to send me and the head of the Turks to literally cool our heels in Bone Village.

After a few moments, I realized my life would be simpler if I just invited Davies over for dinner. I had to get a few groceries from the general store which also doubled as Davies' office, so I could invite him then. We could have drinks, eat, catch up on all the latest news, and he could tell me what had been found, all with as little time spent in Bone Village's balmy climate as possible. I shrugged into a warm coat and went shopping. On the way back, I realized I should probably include Vincent in my dinner arrangements, so I went to the inn to see if he would do me the honor of attending my little get-together and add his own special magical presence to my evening.

I don't know what he was expecting, but rooms made of canvas hung from dinosaur bones with unadorned wood floors, a folding cot with a few thin blankets on it, a useless kerosene heater, and an old metal footlocker for a bed stand/dresser was not apparently what he'd been anticipated. I could hear his teeth chattering as I walked down the rustling canvas hall to his room.

"Mr. Valentine?" I called since the canvas door lacked anything to politely knock on. "I hate to disturb you, but I've asked Davies to come over for dinner to discuss their find."

His lips were turning a light shade of blue when he opened his "door" to look at me. Now all my snippy remarks aside, I didn't hate the man. He had been an annoyance in my life while he'd been assigned to me, but he hadn't asked for the assignment. Despite his lurking, he'd been nothing less than considerate, polite, and even, on occasion, helpful. Compared to other Turks, he'd been rather pleasant during our brief association. Over the years, I've had Turks who were little more than mindless thugs that bullied and used physical violence on me to keep me "protected" and others that were obsessive compulsive organizers that rearranged and regimented my entire life to fulfill their security priorities (couch, cough…Tseng…cough, ahem) . Vincent's hovering and dourness was quite pleasant when compared to them.

"What time?" He was shivering so badly that I doubted that if someone were to attack he'd be able to do more than clumsily get in their way.

It wasn't long after we became intimate that he explained that Shinra policy forbade him from even adding a thin layer of silk thermals to his uniform. Some idle pencil-jockey had decided that all Turks had to be able to move with maximum efficiency at all times, so no modifications to the standard uniform were tolerated. Living in Midgar, a Turk's uniform may inspire fear in the masses, but the Turk is, in general, either freezing or near dead from heat exhaustion depending on the weather. If you wonder why Turks have a reputation for being short tempered and loitering in bars, all I can say is you would too if you had to wear that uniform.

"Why don't you come over now, and we can discuss things before he comes." Honestly, there was little to discuss, but I wasn't a cold hearted bastard back then, and watching someone I knew fall into hypothermia wasn't something I wanted to stand around and witness.

He gave a jerky nod and followed after me. We trundled back through the village. I nodded at a few old friends and called a few greetings. Vincent tried to not look like he was about to pass out from the cold, and trudged stoically behind me.

When we got to my now warm and toasty skull, he almost died of joy. I left him to hug the heater in a desperate attempt to get warm and started opening cans for our repast. I never claimed to be a cook. I doubted that Davies would complain, and my shivering Turk would be grateful for anything that was warm. He really was rather…lost.

When he was guarding me in Midgar, we had been on his turf. He knew the city better than I did. He was the top of the food chain on the street. He knew every road, back alley, and crawl space in the city. He had held the power. But now he was in Bone Village. There were no back alleys. The criminal element had long ago frozen into the permafrost. The vlakorados were to top of the food chain, and I knew how to survive here better than he did.

Oh, I'm not saying he was anything less than the epitome of a Turk. I had no doubts that he'd turn deadly if given the right provocation. He was, and even today is, the perfect killer. He also has something that few other Turks have ever been able to claim -no matter what babble she taught him to believe- humanity. In a way, that makes him even more dangerous.

A Turk is easy to spot, there is a deadness to their eyes that they cannot hide. If you want to feel fear, sit across from Tseng and watch his eyes. The absolute lack of anyone behind them is guaranteed to send terror shooting through your nervous system. Rude, with his ever present sun glasses, hides this defect behind them. Reno uses his garish hair and outrageous behavior to draw attention away from the fact that the person, Reno, is and has been dead for a long time. Elena, the newest member of the Turks still has an occasional flash of aliveness, but it won't last. I give her another year and even those flashes will stop. Vincent though sometimes somber, depressing, pedantic, and gloomy is always** there**, alive and well, living and breathing. The fact that he can be there and yet turn and coolly kill with no hint of remorse is far more frightening then Tseng's blankness.

Well, ready to strike or not, he was now a shivering wreck. As I set the soup on to boil and poured us both cups of tea, I considered my associate. If I had been as sadistic as people claim, I would have kicked him back to his room to freeze that night –if you believe some of them, they'd tell you I probably slipped some illicit science experiment into his tea and then stood back to watch him mutate. However, I hadn't learned to be that cruel yet, and I was low on mutating serums.

…that was a joke… Get it? You can laugh now… no…why am I not surprised? Honestly, the things people believe…

I handed him his tea. "Mr. Valentine, I was thinking. It might be better if you stayed the night with me."

He looked at me carefully. Later, it would occur to me how that sounded and who he was. This time I'm not referring to Vincent the Turk, but Vincent the man with a beautiful face and a long, lithe body that nearly screamed, "Fuck me, someone!"

He even told me about it once. We were standing under an awning waiting out a sudden Midgarian downpour, watching people scamper to shelter. He was flicking water off his sleeve and playfully spattering it at me. I retaliated by wringing my hair out and drying my hands on his back.

"You really were clueless." He smirked managing to flick water in my face. "Cute, but clueless."

Only he ever said I was cute. The best complement I'd ever gotten before or after him was that I was distinguished, and that had been from my mother. Believe me, when you are seven and even your mother can only come up with you looking distinguished, you know you're not going to win the local beauty pageant. He never seemed to notice though. To him, I was beautiful. He loved slipping his fingers down my face, tracing curves and bones, smiling softly as if seeing something infinitely precious.

"Me? Clueless?" I wiped off my face and gave my hair a toss making sure it smacked wetly against his arm. "When have I ever been clueless?"

"Bone Village, that first night." He looked down and almost slyly tried to polish one muddy shoe on my pant leg. Almost. "Asking me to stay the night."

"I was trying to be nice." I stepped out of his way, frustrating his shoe polishing move. "I could have let you freeze."

"Hmmm." He gave up, sighed (translation: I'm a vain creature and you're spoiling my playtime) and took out a pristine white handkerchief to clean his shoes. "I figured that out, but can you guess how many times that day I'd been asked to spend the night?"

I eyed him already knowing at least part of the answer. "Don't tell me, Bettina?"

"There was a reason I had no heat in my room." He finished his preening and offered me the cloth then put it away when I shook my head. "Then there was the maid, the bell hop, the man in the room down the hall, the pilot, a couple of men at the store where I went to find a heater…"

I shook my head and slipped under his arm giving him a hug and a playful grope. "My poor, beautiful, picked on Vincent. How you suffer. Come home with me and spend the night and I'll protect you from all those wicked people who only want to use that sexy body of yours."

He pretended to be the innocent, acting like my hand wasn't fondling one firm butt cheek. "You won't take advantage of me will you?"

"You bet your sweet ass I'll take advantage."

He kissed me there under the awning, in the rain, laughing against my mouth.

Can you blame me if at times all I can do is retreat away from everyone and scream?

In Bone Village, I wondered why he was taking so long to answer my question and was just going to take to offer back when he nodded.

"It would be more convenient." He glanced unhappily at the door, obviously thinking of going back out and freezing again. "Where can I find a cot?"

"I'll ask Davies for one. He runs the store." I nearly missed the leery look he gave me as I turned back to the stove to stir the soup.

"Do you trust this Davies?" He nearly snuggled against the heater sipping his tea like it was ambrosia.

I nodded, "I've known him for years. He's a good man."

He nodded and settled down to sit by the heater lapsing back into his usual silence after his bout of abnormal talkativeness. As I fished out some old tin bowls and washed them, he actually looked like he was dozing. At the time I figured all that conversation wore him out. Now, I know he was just closing his eyes to let his hearing stretch out around him. He's got sharp ears and when in a situation where walls get in the way of his line of sight, he will often close his eyes, quiet his breathing, and listen. I didn't know that then, and not wanting to exhaust him completely with more conversing, I kept quiet and stirred the soup.

A few moments later, Vincent snapped to his feet and looked suspiciously at the door. I was just going to ask him what the matter was when Davies knocked. Vincent jittered around, reluctant to leave the joy of heat, but needing to fulfill his duties as a Turk.

"It's just Davies." I walked by him to the door. He lurked suspiciously behind me and I was relieved to see that he'd de-thawed enough to return to his normal self.

Davies was always welcome company. He was jovial, talkative, and had a fine sense of humor. The three of us sat down for dinner and the two of us talked. Vincent ate and skulked. He mainly skulked by the heater, so he didn't dampen our mood. We chattered about the people we knew, the latest gossip from Midgar, scientific advances, archeology, and any other topic that wandered too close to our wandering minds. Finally, seeing that Vincent was lurking more purposefully, I brought the subject around to where I knew he wanted it to be.

"So, just what did you find that's got everyone so excited?" We had long ago broken into my newly purchased supply of red wine and Davies and I were beginning to feel the effects.

"Damned if I know." He shook his head. "Creepy thing. Looks like a blob of goo and tends to ooze around. I've got it in an old pickle jar in the back of the store."

"A pickle jar?" Gast was going to have fits over that. I just found it funny.

Davies nodded. "Didn't know what else to do with the thing. Some of the boys keep finding bits of it, so we just toss them in there."

And that was Jenova's introduction to the modern world. Some of the boys kept finding bits of her and tossing her into a pickle jar. To think, she'd try to destroy it later. Maybe she held a grudge.

Vincent shifted from lurking to edgy, so I sighed at him (Translation: Okay, okay, I'll ask him.)

"Could you bring it over here? I'd like to take a look at it." I then nodded to my Turk who had cautiously gone back to lurking about the heater. "Also, can you send over a cot and blankets."

Davies shrugged. "Sure. No problem."

The rest of the dinner was pleasant. Vincent settled down to quiet brooding. Davies and I finished the bottle of wine, and afterwards both the specimen and the cot arrived. I put the specimen on the table where it oozed slimily around its pickle jar and Vincent set up the cot next to the fireplace. I could make a few more snarky remarks about his dependence on heat, but it honestly was an excellent spot for him to be. If anything, or anyone, tried to get into the skull, the first thing they'd meet would be an annoyed Turk.

We settled down in our respective beds and spent our first night together. As I drifted off listening to Vincent's soft breathing, I never realized how precious that sound would become to me.

* * *

Please review. I know this is an unpopular pairing, so I'm not expecting loads of reviews, but I do appreciate the encouragement and feedback. Thanks! 


	4. The Beginning of the Beginning

**Once a Man**

**Chapter 4: The Beginning of the Beginning**

* * *

Living with Vincent is far different than being guarded by him. Oh, technically, he was still on duty, but since we were now inhabiting the same domicile, things about him that I hadn't noticed before started becoming apparent.

First thing you must understand is that he is as clean as a cat. He honestly can't stand being dirty. Oh, he doesn't mind things like wrinkled clothing, or as any can see by his present day wardrobe, torn clothing, but he passionately hates dirt. By noon of the second day in my happy little skull, the entire place was immaculately clean.

I had innocently left him to his own devices, which I thought would be lurking and looming around and growling moodily into his phone to his second in command. The Turks were thrown into chaos by their leader's sudden posting to the arctic wastes and he was fielding phone calls at an astounding rate beginning in the wee hours of the morning. I left him to his job and went to see where the "boys" were discovering the sample.

I had made my own phone calls and had requested the equipment that I would need to analyze the ooze that was now swirling around its pickle jar on my table. Knowing Shinra the way I did, I figured I would receive an answer to my request sometime between next spring, five months away, and the end of the world, which I hadn't spent any time calculating, figuring, mistakenly as it turned out, that I would be thousands of years dead by that time and so I wouldn't have to worry about it.

I, by the way win the contest for the most rebellious son in all history. Mine was sent off to military academy and still tried to blow up the world in a fit of angst. I would dare you to top that, but the consequences of your succeeding just make me shiver. Contrary to popular opinion, I don't desire the world to be destroyed. I am a logical man (most of the time) and destroying the planet you are standing on would be rather bone headed, wouldn't it?

So I had trudged off, leaving my house to my new roommate, and went off to find Davies. I had a fine time catching up with the diggers that hung out around Davies' office and then went off with them to the excavation pits to see where they had been finding the sample.

I am not big on archaeology. I am a biochemist. My previous sojourn in Bone Village had been to do a biological survey of the common Tewit. In case you are wondering a Tewit is a medium size bird that nests on the coast near Bone Village and is the primary diet of the vlakorados. They are most fascinating for their ability to regenerate missing limbs and their ability to puff into large, rather frightening masses of porcupine like feathers. The fact that they reproduce at an astounding rate is also rather interesting, but not so interesting that I was going to spend more time freezing in Bone Village, rubbing shoulders with sweaty diggers, and dating my hand to study their sex life. When I realized that Bettina was looking like a viable sexual partner, I started sending out my resume.

Anyways, I tramped out to the mud pits and made appropriately impressed sounds. The archaeologists proudly demonstrated their mudslinging abilities and I kept well back out of slinging range. They didn't find any more sample bits, so I gave them another round of ooohs and aaaahs, and escaped back to my skull.

My immaculately clean, shinny skull.

I'm sure that if I had been gone longer, and he'd had decent clothing, he would have polished the outside of my skull into a mellow shine. As it was, the floors were swept and mopped, the walls had been washed down, the curtain around my bed had been washed and re-hung, the cabinets, bookcases, chairs, beds, counters, and table were all spotlessly clean and smelling faintly of furniture polish, and the bedding was now neat and straight. He even cleaned the windows that were in the eye sockets of the skull.

I passed it off at the time as boredom. That one fit, highly active Turk being confined in a small skull in Bone Village took out all his excess energy in a cleaning orgy. It was odd, but understandable. Only later did I realize that it was really just him. I sometimes wonder how he managed to survive on the Highwind with all that grease and grime and no way to clean it. He must have been terribly frustrated. Honestly, I don't know which one got more of my sympathy, Vincent for having to live with all that dirt, or Mr. Highwind for having to live with Vincent living with all that dirt. It couldn't have been pleasant.

When I finished gaping at my newly clean home, I found Vincent grumbling into is phone about security patrols and idly trying to wipe the accumulated soot off my fireplace.

"Wow. You do windows." I brilliantly noted then even more brilliantly dove back outside as my newly appointed housecleaner pointed a gun at me. True, Turks in general don't shoot the people they are assigned to guard, but his orders were rather vague and neither of us were sure if he was supposed to guard me, the sample, or just hang around and intimidate the diggers into digging faster.

I stayed away for a whole hour before I stuck my nose back in. He'd calmed down into a slow burn and was taking it out on some poor lackey who'd idiotically thought he could slack off since the boss was out of town. I learned later that the man took his early severance pay from the Turks, which is the nice way of saying he was taken down to the incinerator room and used to heat the 49th floor.

I was also smart enough to bring a bribe with me in the form of a warm duffle coat. It was even in Turk blue and had a collar similar to the one of his uniform jacket. He looked at it and me, sighed (Translation: Okay, you get to live for another hour, but don't press it), and snarled a few unprintable words at the soon to be heating fuel on the other end of the line.

I happily poked at the specimen, which as you may have noticed I hadn't named yet, and went to my refrigerator (my blindingly clean refrigerator) and dug around for a drink. That's one of my problems whenever I indulge in too much alcohol, I spend the next day guzzling liquid like a traveler that just hiked on foot to Cosmo Canyon. After acquiring my beverage (Cosmo Cola: See the Stars!) I poked into the cupboard (now even the cans glowed with a clean mellow shine) and found a can of chocobo stew and dumplings and dumped the contents into a pot (gleaming) and set in on the stove (my thoroughly cleaned and sanitized stove).

Vincent finished his phone call by calling the other a few rather creative things and went to glower at the fireplace. The fire was unimpressed, but since it kept him from glowering at me, I left him to it. It was right about then I discovered the second thing that one should always keep in mind about Vincent.

Vincent is brilliant.

I know. Right now, he still believes the babble she prattled so viciously in his ears, but whether he believes it or not, he is one of the most intelligent people I've ever met. Oh, he's not going to head up Shinra's scientific department anytime soon, and emotionally he was (and sadly still is) about as inept as a man could get, but his mind's capabilities are easily on par with, or, in my rather biased opinion, far in excess of that of his father, and his father was no slouch in the intellectual game.

"You're sample seems to react to people's emotions." He said it while still trying to stare the fire into submission.

"Hmmm?" I blinked out of whatever thoughts I'd fallen into while stirring our lumpy meal.

He nodded over his shoulder to where the sample oozed around its container. "It reacts to emotions."

I blinked a few more times trying to get my brain to wrap around that information and where the information was coming from. In my defense, I had not yet realized whose son I was talking to, and after spending a year in Shinra's employ, I had learned Turks in general were a rather dull, violent lot that were good at observing, but poor at coming up with a intelligent conclusion as to what their observations meant. Vincent's comment set me back a moment as my reality rewrote itself.

I went over to the sample and lifted the jar. It didn't look like it was reacting to anything. "How can you tell."

He sighed (Translation: You owe me for this) and came over taking the sample out of my hands. "Watch."

He took a deep breath and frowned, his eyes narrowing angrily. At first there was nothing then the sample started rippling oddly. He let his breath out, visibly calming himself and in a few seconds the sample went back to its oozing.

He handed it back to me. "Depending on the emotion, it reacts in different ways. Try it."

I did. I spent the rest of the afternoon trying it out watching as the sample swirled in circles when I was happy, rippled when I was angry, and went still when I got sad. It was actually quite entertaining. At least it was to me. He found it rather boring, took his new duffle coat and went off to inspire the diggers to find more sample pieces.

I didn't hear him leave, and I didn't know when he got back. I vaguely remember a bowl of overcooked chocobo and dumpling stew being placed on top of the growing pile of written data that I was frantically scribbling, and I remember at some point a warm blanket being wrapped around my shoulders, but I everything else was just lost in the wonder of research.

Vincent was absolutely correct. The sample reacted to emotion. I couldn't do a detailed study of this phenomenon since my equipment was still on its glacially slow trek from Shinra to Bone Village. I did manage to write up reams of observational data that I was sure Gast would cackle gleefully over as he rushed to President Shinra to take all the credit for the discovery.

I woke from my scientific haze to find myself tucked in bed with the sample sitting on the nightstand next to me. At the time, I didn't know better. Now, I would have it secured in a vault under layers of shielding, and been asleep on another continent. I hated when President Shinra ordered Jenova's relocation to Midgar. I much preferred it sitting behind layers of shields, with a huge sign over a heavy, multi-locked door, in the middle of a reactor, on the top of a mountain, in the back end of nowhere, on the other side of another continent. The moment Jenova made her entrance into Midgar, I gave up sleeping and started writing my resignation to spend time in Costa del Sol (which you may note is on another continent.) I would have gone to Wutai, but I still had very painful memories of vacationing there with Vincent.

He loved Wutai. He'd step onto Wutai's soil and it seemed all the tension he'd been storing in his body would leave him in one huge rush. Whenever I noted that he came home more bloody than usual, I would start making arrangements for a vacation there. After a few days, my dangerous Turk would turn into a puddle of contented, smiling mush. He'd be nearly purring in happiness from too much dim sum, sake, and sex.

In the darkest of the dark time to come, when he was delirious from the treatments, I would sit on the floor cradling him in my arms, whispering promises that we would go back there and he could wear the soft bright silks he so adored, and we'd sit, drink fine sake and eat those tiny morsels that came on tiny, delicate plates, and he could sleep on those ridiculously hard mats they laid on the floor, and he could sleep in late, and we'd go climbing Da-chao, and thousands of other promises to hopelessly try to push the dark away from both of us. It never happened. At that point even I knew there was no repairing what she'd done, and the best I could hope for was that I could still find some way to release him from her plans.

Anyway, I sat up that morning with the sample swirling sluggishly in its jar and a huge pile of research notes that I blearily remembered composing. Vincent was gone and outside the eye windows I could see a heavy snow falling. I tumbled out of bed and wobbled aimlessly around my little abode trying to get my mind to coalesce back together into some form of coherence.

I eventually found my way to my table and managed to package up my reports to send off to Gast. After, I made my way to the kitchen (annoyingly clean kitchen) and found a cup of instant noodles that seemed good enough for breakfast.

I ambled around slurping my noodles and finally managed to find my small music player and set it up to play some tunes. Vincent had put it away in a drawer. I wondered if it was a commentary on my musical choices. I love jazz, and through the years, I have found that people either love it, are puzzled by it, or detest it. Vincent, as it turned out, prefers either hard, ear jarring rock, or soft classical flute ensembles. He is one of the puzzled when it comes to jazz. It balanced though since I was one of the puzzled when it came to the rock. How can something that angry be soothing?

I was just sitting filling out the paperwork that was required for every report that whizzed through Shinra's mindless mail department when Vincent arrived back with a young archaeologist tagging worshipfully at his heels. He would find the only cute archaeologist in Bone Village (and probably the world since archaeologist aren't generally known to be a good looking bunch) and have her slavishly worshiping the air he breathed. And Vincent, being him, dimwittedly didn't realize that if he only looked her in the eye for just a moment she'd fling her naked body on the floor and plead to bear his children. Happily, he was busy being Vincent and he never even glanced at her.

And he called me clueless. Pot, kettle, Vincent.

"If you need anything else, please let me know." She had a medium size brown cardboard box held in her arms that she set on the floor.

He nodded, "Thank you."

"I'll keep an eye on the others and let you know if anyone starts slacking off." She smiled at him with an expression of complete adoration. "You can count on me."

I could guess that there were a few other things she'd be willing to have him do on her, but Vincent just sighed (Translation: I said thank you, now go away.) She didn't understand Vincent Sigh Language though and kept standing there worshiping.

"It must be so exciting being a Turk." She tried for conversation.

Unfortunately for her, she was trying it with the wrong person. Vincent can be very chatty…when drunk off his ass. He also can and likes to have long conversations, but only with people he knows and feels comfortable with. I have always thought it rather interesting that Avalanche believes him to be the strong, silent type that rarely talks.

Vincent sighed again (Translation: Little fly go away or be swatted), so I stepped in to save her from finding out just how exciting a Turk could really be, or he got irritated enough to look her in the eye and instigate the naked female on the floor scene. Now, I have no personal dislike of naked women writhing about on my floor (my clean, glossy floor), but I rather like to be on a first name basis with the woman doing the writhing before she begins.

"Thank you for brining that." I got out of my chair, causing her to startle.

She'd been so focused on the wonder that was Vincent that she never noticed me. Poor thing. I can't blame her. She was young, probably an intern fresh from college, and stuck in Bone Village with its freeze dried inhabitants and dirty, sweaty diggers. Vincent walking through town must have been like watching a young god visiting the lower realms.

"Oh, hello." She backed away, glancing longingly at Vincent.

I gave her a friendly smile and nodded to the box. "What's in it?"

"I don't know. It came in this morning." She deflated a bit as Vincent walked away to warm himself in front of the fire then she turned and started eyeing me.

I suppose the fact that I was clean was a big attraction. I definitely was no competition with Vincent in the looks department. I also must say I wasn't entirely unpleased with her interest. Having lived in Bone Village, I knew a young, pretty, non-fish smelling lady was a hard commodity to come by. If Vincent didn't want to take advantage of her interest, I was more than happy to take his leftovers.

"Probably things we forgot." I gave her a charming shrug and a boyish scratch on the back of my head. "I never seem to pack what I need."

She gave me a smile. "Me too. My mom had to send boxes of things to me when I got here."

I ratcheted my estimate of her age down from early twenties to just barely out of jail bait age. I'd have to check with Davies though just to make sure I wouldn't suddenly get slapped with statutory rape charges.

I gave her a small chuckle. "I wish my mother would do that for me."

Actually, at that time my mother was still alive and well in Wutai and would often send care packages. She never believed that anyone out of Wutai could feed her little boy, so every week I got boxes of steamed dumplings, all kinds of stir fried dishes, delicately folded stuffed wontons, rolls with various fillings, barbecued meats, fragrant rice, and containers of soup. Before Vincent, I would eat a meal or two and freeze the rest, which eventually got tossed out to make room for more of her food. When he settled himself into my life, he would eagerly wait for those packages and greet them with cries of heartfelt joy. When the two finally met, he nearly got on his knees and worshiped her. They got along terrifically.

I've noticed, the few times I've managed to visit her grave, that someone leaves tokens and incense. Since all her friends have passed away and I'm her last living relative that only leaves one other person that still loves her enough to leave those things. I'd thank him, but he'd probably shoot me again, so I'll just let the matter stand as it is.

Meg, my newly acquired friend and maybe more, and I talked for a few more minutes then I bundled into my coat and urged her out the door before Vincent either figured out that he just brushed off the best sexual partner he was likely to find in Bone Village, or got annoyed with our talking and shot us both.

I won't tire you with the ancient song and dance that men and women have been dancing since the dawn of time. Suffice to say I spent the day attracting a partner, and she spent the day being attracted. By the time I tumbled into the door covered in snow, I was already planning how to bed Meg without Vincent lurking around, and Meg was off looking over her scanty lingerie and seeing if her camp cot would comfortably fit two active people.

Vincent was settled on the fireplace's step reading when I finished brushing off. He seemed content enough in the firelight, so I left him to his entertainment and ambled off to the tiny bathroom for a warm shower. By the time I had worked out my problems and could feel my toes again, he was already asleep.

I spend a bit of time sitting by the fire letting my hair dry. It was short back then, so it really didn't take very long. He made a few little murmuring sounds in his sleep but otherwise everything was quiet enough that I could hear the hiss of the snow as it fell against the windows. While I still wasn't happy to be back in Bone Village living with Vincent, right then I was content. I was warm. I had a good roommate. I had a prospective lover. And I had my work.

I sometimes wonder. If I could travel back in time, when would I go.

I would go there. I would go there and weave a few lies to Vincent about a crazy, evil girl with an angel's face (they actually wouldn't be lies) and how dangerous she was to me and to Shinra. I would then make sure he found her, shot her, and we'd both live happily for the rest of our lives. Maybe I would kill her myself and make sure Vincent never came close to her. I am good with a gun. Vincent didn't like me to wander around unarmed, so he patiently taught me to shoot and insisted I carry a weapon. I could kill her and I'm sure Vincent would take care of any lingering suspicions that might ensue. Yes, that is where I would go. There when everything was before us, bright and new and unblemished.

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Thanks for the reviews. I can't give individual responses to unsigned ones, but I want you to know I love them. 


	5. Seduction

AN: Merry Christmas to all of you! This was really a fun chapter to write, so it's longer than normal. I'll get back to shorter chapters later.

**Once a Man**

**Chapter 5: Seduction**

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He told me once that he hated Meg passionately from the moment he glanced over his shoulder and noted us chatting together. Vincent, for some reason that never made sense to me, had come to the decision that while Meg was at best okay for a sexual partner, I was far more appealing. His reason, which makes me wonder if he had some odd eye or perceptional problem, was that I was far more attractive than Meg. Meg, while no glossy beauty queen, had wide brown eyes, a tiny waist, a nicely curved bottom, and bouncy chestnut curls. She was far from homely, but he wasn't interested. Instead, someplace behind those amber eyes, he'd come to the conclusion that I was what he wanted.

This is where I started learning about the third thing you should keep in mind at all times about Vincent. If he wants something, he will get it. He will wait patiently till the right moment then use all his skills to achieve his goal. Seeing that in the skill of seducing me Vincent was a born master, I had no chance.

However, I didn't know that until much, much later after I was well and truly conquered.

I also learned that Vincent is a sneaky, ruthless Turk when he wanted something. He will go to any length, and I do mean any, to achieve his goals. I would melodramatically plead for sympathy here, but if you've seen Vincent, any sympathy I get would be insincere as you dreamily wish you'd been the one he'd set his sights on to seduce. I was a lucky, lucky man to be stalked by that Turk.

I was still blissfully unaware of all this when I woke up the next morning to find Vincent absent from our happy home and the sun shining through the windows. I went to the box, hoping that it would possibly contain some equipment to analyze the sample, and was unsurprised to find it was actually forms for me and Vincent. Even though we were stuck in the frozen wastes, we still had paperwork to accomplish. I particularly liked seeing that Vincent was still supposed to do a weekly on-site inventory of the Turk's weaponry. I had a good laugh while I unpacked, till I noted that I was still required to make a cleaning report on the labs. How I was supposed to actually report on the cleanliness of a lab that was on another continent escaped me, but I was game.

I separated our respective forms and set them on the table till I could go to Davies and order a couple of file cabinets for us to store them and their future brothers and sisters in. Vincent wandered in and proceeded to spread merriment around him in a dark dismal wave of gloom. He was in rare form even making the sample ooze to the other side of the jar as he scowled at the heater as if he was wondering what would be the most painful and violent way to send it off to the lifestream.

At this juncture in my life, I didn't have a death wish –that came later- so I kept my mouth shut and didn't tell him he was expected in Midgar to do his weapon inspection Tuesday so he'd better get swimming. Instead I grabbed my jacket and went off to see Meg. Since I don't have stunning good looks to buffer my way through the wilds of romantic wooing, I have found that charm and attentiveness go a long way to swaying the potential partners' minds. Later, I would cynically put this aside and just wave cash and my position to attract devotees, but that would come later.

I found Meg smiling happily and buzzing around Davies' office. "I got transferred! It's incredible! I'm actually working with Professor Jenkins's team uncovering the Temple of the Ancients!"

Now, I wished Vincent had just shot her. She, eager overachiever that she was, was the one to uncover the entrance to the Temple and discover the existence of black materia.

Anyhow, as my sex life for the foreseeable future flushed, I grinned back. "That's great."

"He's the best archaeologist on the Planet!" She enthused, gathering papers. "He called this morning and personally invited me to join his team. A private helicopter is coming to pick me up in just a few hours!"

I later found that Vincent had gotten up early that morning, made a few phone calls to his informants, found out that Jenkins had a penchant for plagiarism which could sink his career. Vincent had then used that information to call Jenkins and suggest that Meg would be an excellent member of his team. Vincent, by the way, can ooze menace over the phone with the same joi d' vie that he can shoot bottles off a fence.

"That's wonderful. Do you need help packing?"Considering I had a Turk trying to glare my heater to death back in my cozy skull, helping a pretty lady pack was the choice of activities for that day. Who knew? I might have gotten lucky, but Vincent had been busy.

"Hey, Hojo!" An archaeologist came in and tossed a sweaty, dirty arm over my shoulder. "We got something for you to see."

I was summarily dragged off to the excavation pits to see men wallow in mud, leaving the last trace of an attractive partner bouncing merrily around getting prepared for her new life in the tropics. I spent the rest of the day being shown the area where the sample was found and hearing tales of how it was discovered. I'm sure it was all very important, but as the day wore into evening, I was less than interested. By the time the diggers let me escape it was nearly dark and I could have merrily eaten one of their boots for dinner. So I dragged my frozen, starved, achy, mud covered self home to find Vincent stepping out of the bathroom wrapped only in a towel. He barely took notice of me as I stood gaping and blushing in the doorway.

"Close the door." He went over to his cot and picked up a pair of pants. "You're letting in the cold."

How I managed to find the door, much less figured out how to close it is one of the great mysteries of my life. I retreated to behind my curtain and sat on my bed blinking at nothing in particular.

And I thought he'd been stunning before.

I have been accused of causing immeasurable harm to Vincent, scaring and disfiguring his body. First, I want to say that Vincent already had a decent amount of scars when I first saw him that night. Believe me they didn't detract even a tiny fraction from his beauty. In fact, the light tracings seemed to accent the fineness of his skin and the perfect definition of his muscles. Second, early on in my attempts to undo what she had done, I tried to minimize the damage the treatments would do to his body. Among those minimizations was a serum I had been developing from my research of the Tewits. It basically enhanced his ability to heal and virtually eliminated all scaring. He claims it is a side effect of the demons, but it was really my doing. I hated the thought of any trace of her manipulations ever being permanently etched into his skin. Eventually, even the deepest of scars that I saw that night will fade. I'm not sure I'm pleased with that or not. I did love tracing those scars with my tongue, feeling him shiver in pleasure against my lips.

It took me a few minutes to calm myself back down. He was rustling around, probably getting dressed, which tugged my imagination into areas I desperately didn't want it to go. While I was calming my psyche, he wandered over to the kitchen, thankfully for my fragile state, wearing clothes. I spent a couple more minutes blinking as he rummaged around and finally unearthed a can of tomato soup, some bread, and a few slices of cheese. By the time he'd finished cooking toasted cheese sandwiches and soup, I was almost back to normal and ventured out from my hiding place.

He had been nice enough to cook me dinner too. I suppose that it may have been little more than survival instinct on his part since I might have accidentally set our skull on fire if left to my own devices near the stove at this point.

I should point out he was perfectly aware of what he was doing to me and he never let me live that small humiliation down. He managed to bring it up at least once a month, and often sooner throughout our time together. The pleased, self congratulatory smirk he always wore when reminiscing about it didn't help much either.

Lucky I love the bastard.

I managed not to make a scene as I ate my soup, carefully not looking at him, and nibbled on my sandwich, still not looking at him. I just got up to go look at the specimen when he began what would become what seemed like eons of nearly unmerciful teasing.

"Aren't you going to say thank you?" He had settled himself down next to the fireplace again reading, and glanced up as I rose from the table.

My normally well functioning mind took that moment to start babbling hysterically at me. _Thank him? Thank him for the soup or for…that? Oh dear Planet… What should I say…I could say thank you Vincent for the delightful… Oh, no. I am not going to say that… Uh… Oh no…he's looking at me…I have to say something…_

After standing there gaping like a complete moron –much to his entertainment- I finally managed to squeak. "Thank you."

He looked placidly down at his book. "You're welcome."

I nearly ran back to my little alcove and hid behind the curtain again blushing like a virgin after being propositioned by one of the Honeybee girls. Yes, the Honeybee has been around for that long. Mind you it hasn't always been in the same place. It used to be in one of the byways of Junon. When the previous owner died, Veld hired that ass Don Correno to take it over and move it to Midgar as part of the Turk's spying operations. Tseng, however, never liked getting his hands as dirty as Veld did and let Correno have too much leeway. Seeing that most of the executive board regularly visited –That includes Reeve. He isn't quite as upstanding and pure as he'd like everyone to believe- it was a security nightmare waiting to explode. It was just lucky that some fanatic didn't decide to cripple Shinra by taking out the whole executive board during "Shinra's Bi-Annual Moral Boosting Night."

So I hid and out by the fire, unknown to me, Vincent smirked and plotted.

The next morning, I was up early and was ready to make headway in my new resolve. I had decided during the night that I was going to see if I could get Bettina to wash up and deodorize. We had always gotten along and the only thing standing between me and a solid relationship with an attractive, enjoyable woman was the smell of fish. As a scientist with too much time on my hands, at least until Shinra managed to send the equipment, I could solve her body odor problem. When the problem was solved, I could get laid and any lingering images of entirely too enticing skin and the firm ripple of muscles would be banished from my thoughts.

I decided the best way to begin was to take note of what Bettina ate during the day. That would begin with breakfast, so I bounded out of bed, into my clothes, and out the door before my sleepy Turk could do more than poke his nose out from under his covers and yawn.

Bettina ate breakfast at what most would consider a hellishly early hour. Having spent many mornings getting up early and stumbling my way down to the Tewit nesting ground before sunrise, I had occasionally breakfasted with her. She always appreciated the company, and just as long as I sat on the other side of the table, I enjoyed myself tremendously.

At some level, I have always been slightly regretful that Vincent broke this relationship up. Bettina was a level headed woman with a sharp mind and a loving personality, who would have been able to not only deal with the duties and schedule of a Shinra scientist, but would have been able to give me well thought out advice when I needed it most. In return, I would have been able to give her a spouse that would appreciate her easy going wit and humor, and give her the stable relationship she always wanted. We would have made a very comfortable married couple.

It is a very small regret though, because even though I still wake up wanting to take a scalding hot shower and scrub my skin off with steel wool just remembering I once was intimate with Her, I would have had to give up my time with Vincent. I would go right back through that hell we endured to live that again.

I suppose there is some sort of irony in play when I think that he probably wakes up wanting to scrub away his skin for being intimate with me. I just wonder if it is justice or just a strange twist of fate.

I showed up at Bettina's door just as she was setting up the coffee pot. "Care for some company?"

She grinned back, "Hey! I wondered where you were keeping yourself. Come in and sit down. Eggs okay?"

I came in and sat down as she pulled out eggs, bacon, and bread for toast. That was the other thing I always liked about Bettina, she could cook.

"How are you and the pretty boy getting along?" She turned and clicked on the old antique that passed for a radio.

I hid my grimace as Ice Pack Sammy's melodious voice crackled through the speakers. "Fine." _Just as long as he keeps his clothes on._

She nodded. "I saw him down talking to the diggers yesterday." She placed the bacon in an iron frying pan and the nearly heavenly smell of real cooking filled the room. "He seems to be adjusting to things. Thought he'd freeze at first. Poor thing."

Part of me wanted to comment that he certainly didn't look like he'd been freezing last night as he stepped out of the bathroom steam with droplets of water still clinging to his shoulders. "I got him a coat."

She nodded and started humming along to a tune that Ice Pack Sammy must have unearthed from his vault of oldies-but-never-goodies. She put coffee on the table which I gratefully gulped, trying to get all Turk like people and their overly perfect bodies out of my head. The rest of breakfast was on the table in a moment and we dug in.

It was a great meal. I had almost forgotten how much I'd enjoyed these times with her. Unfortunately, I didn't see any suspicious food or habits that would have explained Bettina's unique odor. I made a note to myself to check in with her at lunch and after much lazy discussion and playful gossip, I went back to my lurking Turk.

Who was missing.

I shrugged it away and looked at the sample. It was still placidly oozing around, and for a moment I considered redoing the experiments with emotions that I had previously done, but I had already explored that area as much as I could till Shinra's requisition department took mercy on my soul. I regretfully put it back down and ambled around my shiny, clean home.

I finally sat down next to the fire where Vincent was getting in the habit of sitting and looked at the book he'd been reading. I found the title, "A Hundred Years of Solitude," a bit depressing, so I got up and started poking through the books I'd brought with me. I settled on a light book about astronomy from a researcher out of Cosmo Canyon that I'd been promising myself I'd read for months.

By the time lunch came around, I was so absorbed in the life of planets that I nearly forgot about my quest to deodorize Bettina. I scampered to my feet and headed off to see what my newest interest was eating for lunch. Since Vincent had yet to reappear, I had an excellent reason for intruding on her meal.

I knocked on her door, putting on a worried expression.

"Well, my mother always said not to feed a stray…" Bettina smiled at me as she opened the door.

I gave her a small laugh. "Sorry for disturbing you, but," I looked around as if I'd lost something that might just pop up unexpectedly. "Vincent's been gone for hours." I tossed in a slightly irritated sounding sigh and ran a hand through my hair. "He's so new at being up here. I've been trying to keep an eye out for him. He could get in trouble if he wanders off too far." I shook my head slowly. "That coat I got him is fine but…" I gave long suffering sigh as if Vincent was a heavy load I self-sacrificingly bore for the sake of everyone, "he's a city boy."

Bettina frowned thoughtfully. "I think I saw him down at the store earlier." She tapped her lip thoughtfully. "I think I saw him talking to the head digger."

I nodded, glancing in to note that Bettina was having a rather normal lunch of broiled chocobo and a small salad. "Thanks, Bettina." I had a sudden inspiration. "Tell you what, why don't you come over for dinner? I'll splurge and get real food."

She laughed, "Sounds wonderful, but don't strain yourself, Hojo. Just get the fixings and I'll cook 'em when I get there."

Bettina knew me too well.

We parted with a few more small goodbyes and I went down to the store and bought real stakes, frozen vegetables, and potatoes for dinner. I also made a few inquiries about my wandering Turk. Vincent, it seemed, had been there earlier, but had disappeared with a group of archaeologists who were looking into traversing the Ancient Forest in an attempt to reach the old city. I figured he was in good hands, and since my main objective was accomplished, I returned to my book and began plotting anew.

It seemed Bettina's odoriferous problem wasn't dietary, so now I had to look at other causes. During dinner, I could make a few subtle inquiries into her hygienic routine. I have found that if you ask a woman for help in keeping yourself clean and well moisturized, they will all go into long paeans of advice that extols their own routine. I could also try leading the conversation around to favorite foods, just to double check to make sure Bettina wasn't stuffing herself with pickled herring in between more mundane meals.

Pleased, I turned my attention back to my book, patting myself on the back for my prowess in planning my upcoming evening. How naive I was, considering I was unwittingly plotting against a master.

Vincent skulked back in just before dark with a small Lunar Harp tucked under his jacket. He set it down next to his cot and proceeded to clean the poor thing nearly into nonexistence. For a short space of time, my skull housed the cleanest Lunar Harp in the history of the Planet. I always wondered what happened to that harp. I know I put it in the crypt with him, safely tucked away in an air tight chest –At some level I just didn't want to hear his bitching when he woke up to find his things dirty. He had me well trained- along with what other things of his she didn't pettily destroy, but when he and that failure wanted to go through the Sleeping Forest, they had to dig up another. Maybe the Ancient took it. Or maybe he smashed it, destroying any memento that reminded him of our time together.

Bettina arrived soon afterwards to be scowled at until it became apparent that she was there to feed us. If by some chance you ever need Vincent in a good mood, feed him. The better the food, the more pronounced his mood change will be. When we were living together, I often had to worm my way back into our apartment after a fight by waving take-out through a crack in the door as a peace offering as I prayed he wasn't irritated enough to shoot at me. Doors are expensive. When perfectly cooked steaks, baked potatoes, and buttery corn appeared on the table, I was suddenly plunged into a fit of worry that Vincent was going to pounce on Bettina before I could. Herring smell or not.

His mood changed though when I started putting my plan into action, not that I noticed it at the time. I only realize it in hindsight. I don't think he really paid much attention to when I was discussing favorite foods. He even managed to mumble a few nearly monosyllabic replies to any conversation that wandered in his direction. (In case you are wondering, his favorite food is tiny macaroon cookies from a Wutain bakery in Midgar.) However, when I worked the conversation around to dry skin and pleaded with Bettina to save me from my flaky epidermis, he started becoming quieter. When Bettina shared her secret –yes, you guessed it, herring oil- he was back to his old self.

Bettina and I chattered on for awhile more and he went back to his perch by the fire to be beautiful and moody. He did it well, I have to admit and was still a bit worried about my competition when I noticed Bettina's gaze sliding in his direction. Bettina's herring oil would be easy enough to do away with. By the time dinner was over, I was sighing longingly over the latest skin moisturizer that came out of Kalm. It was a hellishly expensive thing, but I noted that Bettina's eyes lit up over it and she nearly yodeled its attributes when she brought it up. I made silent plans to get a shipment of it sent to me and as she left our humble abode. I worried that once Bettina smelled pleasantly of Kalm's flowers if Vincent would snatch my prize away.

The next day, Vincent was once again up early, snatching his harp and heading out the door with a happy swing to his step as I tumbled my rumpled way over to the kitchen to see if I could boil water for tea without too many mishaps. I should have been suspicious. First, Vincent had never moves happily when on the job. Happy movement is always suspect. Later, I learned that a bouncingly happy Vincent is a sneaky, plotting Vincent who is plotting your downfall. Second, he was up very, very early, earlier than I'd gotten up the day before. Vincent isn't really what anyone would call lazy, but if his duties allow it, he does like to lay in bed dozing till around nine in the morning. It's his way of spoiling himself. Getting out of bed and being out the door well before sunrise is rather odd if there is no reason for him to get up.

At the time, I was too innocent to figure out his reason. I just assumed it had to do with the harp.

By the time I got myself awake, any lingering thoughts of my roommate were banished in the rush to get to the store and order myself a couple of bottles of moisturizer. Davies was happy to help out, and I spent the rest of the morning humming to myself.

My mood did have one slight damper. Our happy little skull seemed a bit warm. I went over to my faithful little heater and poked at the controls to see if I could reduce the temperature figuring my freezing Turk had set it too high. The settings hadn't changed though, so I just adjusted it to a lower setting, figuring it was warmer out than it had been previously.

I settled back down with my book and didn't think much about anything till mid-day when Vincent sauntered past our skull with a group of archaeologists. They looked like they'd spent the morning being drowned and stamped on. Vincent was silently fussing at mud splotches on his jacket and a few others were limping along with him. For some reason, bruised, scraped, wet, and probably on the verge of hypothermia, they all looked remarkably happy.

Vincent and his new friends disappeared, heading towards the store, and I was left staring out the window with the image of Vincent turning to one of the diggers and smiling. I felt something curl in my stomach. I almost wanted to rush out and join them, to see that smile again. But I turned away and went back to my book.

I knew where I belonged. I was a scientist. My job was to stay in a lab and methodically test minute changes over long periods of time. I was nothing special to look at. I had nice teeth and I'd been told that my hair was quite nice, but I didn't qualify as good, or even pleasant looking. I was nothing short of homely and I knew it. I did nothing exciting. I had no fascinating hobbies. I didn't bungee jump off bridges or climb mountains. I was bookish, dull, and boring. I even talked wrong, too polite, too formal, too stilted.

Vincent was everything I was not. His life was one of excitement and adventure. He went to exotic places. He did dangerous things, living on his wits and instincts. He was flawless, with perfect bone structure, mesmerizing amber brown eyes, lustrous hair, and beautifully kissable lips. He may have been quiet and serious, but to be fair, anyone with a passing familiarity with the Turks knows that they were Shinra's wild, dangerous children that breathed in the glittery neon city nights and exhaled seductive danger. He was no exception. After all, he was their king.

I belonged safe inside, sipping tea and reading a book. He belonged in some other realm where you got scraped, soaked, and bloody then came back into town brushing off your clothes and smiling at your comrades. We still inhabit those same worlds. Once, by his choice, our worlds connected. Now, by her manipulations, they are well and truly separated. I live in the dull world of science, and he now lives in the rarified air of heroes.

And neither of us is happy.

I kept company with my book till well into the night. Vincent didn't come back and I sat lost in the stars till I realized I was getting hot. Through the day, I had absently tossed off layer after layer of clothes till now I was dressed in nothing but a pair of pants and a cotton undershirt. I hadn't even paused as I shucked off a sweater as I went to warm up my tea. I barely remembered kicking my boots under my bed, leaving me to pad around in my socks. I have no memory of taking of my sweatshirt or long sleeve, cotton dress shirt. Now, I was in a thin tee and sweating.

I went to poke at the heater, but it was on its lowest setting. I had let the fire dwindle to some ash covered embers and with night now fully settled, I couldn't even claim warm weather was making the skull too warm. I knelt down and looked at my heater more carefully. It looked fine to me, but it was putting out a lot of heat. I turned it off, slightly worried about a fire hazard, and went to bed thinking that I'd have to go and get a new heater tomorrow.

In the middle of the night, I woke up freezing. Vincent was nowhere in sight and the skull was like an ice box. I crept back to the fireplace and rebuilt the fire and huddled under a blanket next to it as it slowly grew into a small blaze. In my sleep muddled, tired mind, it seemed to take hours till the fire was big enough to provide even a little bit of heat.

"Something wrong?" Vincent's voice came from the door.

I looked up as he stepped in, brushing snow off his jacket. "The heater's malfunctioning."

"Hmmm." He nodded and looked around. "That's a problem."

_Of course_, I thought, _my heat dependent Turk would consider it a problem_.

"I'll get another tomorrow." I turned away, huddling closer to the fire.

"Okay." He looked around the skull house appraisingly. "I'll be over at Dmitri's."

Dmitri was one of the archaeologists, the one that sorted and cataloged the digger's finds. He lived in the skull just across the street. He was slender, blond, and slightly too effeminate for my tastes with his wide doe like brown eyes and long silky hair. I thought he always seemed rather dusty, pale, and nervous. But Vincent was going to spend the night over there…with him…

"Fine, fine." I shivered my way back to my bed. "Take the sample. No point letting it freeze."

He shrugged and scooped up the pickle jar off the table. It oozed sluggishly around. Why I thought something that had been buried in the permafrost for hundreds if not thousands of years was going to take harm from staying in a cold room is beyond me, but I wasn't functioning well at that point in the morning. Vincent didn't comment on it and turned around and walked back out without even giving me another glance to spend the night with Dmitri.

I curled up and miserably fell back to sleep, wondering if sleepily if I should get up and spend the night at the inn and debating just how bad herring oil really was.

I was outside Davies store as soon as it opened in the morning. Davies gave me a cup of coffee as I shuffled into his office and told him about my heater.

"That's not good, Hojo." He shook his head. "We're out of heaters and the dealer is back ordered."

Naïve thing that I was, I didn't even question this.

"But I have no heat… Can I borrow one from someone?" I nearly pleaded.

He shook his head sadly. "Sorry. We all switched to installed heating units last fall. You're probably the only one that still has a portable." He scratched his chin thoughtfully for a second, "But tell you what, bring it over here and I'll see what I can do with it. I could probably fix it."

My gullibility to this day surprises me…

I whimpered gratefully and rushed back to my frozen fossil of a home and retrieved my broken heater. I also took the time to pile more wood on the fire. It didn't adequately heat the place, but it kept it at least warm enough o stave off freezing to death. I then raced back and handed the heater over to Davies.

"I'll get right on this. Come by tonight and pick it up."

I grinned like the fool I was. "Thank you!"

He disappeared back into his office, leaving me shivering and planning on how to spend the day. Vincent and his new friends were already out making another attempt to get to the Ancient's city. Bettina was in the middle of weekly laundry, and I was left with the diggers, who greeted me with hearty slaps on the back and offered me a shovel.

For what happened next, I can only claim the extreme circumstances. However, it does give me a small bit of pleasure to know that in my desperation to stay warm, I spoiled Vincent's plan. Mind you, I would have been much happier if I hadn't. I could probably have spent the night warm and half mad with pleasure, not to mention back in the possession of a functioning heater, but there is still the thrill of satisfaction that the one who was responsible for my descent into the horror of archaeology suffered a bit from the result of his actions.

I took my shovel from the diggers and with Vincent's smile in the back of my head, went off to be one of the boys. Male bonding is a frightening thing. It turns even the sanest of people into beer chugging, mud slinging idiots. By the end of the day, I had learned the technique to shoveling and had spent most of my mud covered day, perfecting it. I even got a few congratulatory comments on how good I was slinging the foul stuff. I grinned back, pleased with my accomplishment, and managed not to say I had plenty of practice metaphorically shoveling through another type of brown foul stuff back in Shinra's science department. After being dragged off to finish the ritual of bonding by drinking too much beer and being slapped on the back by people just as filth as I was, I stumbled wearily and somewhat drunkenly back to the store where Davies handed my heater back to me.

"It was the controls." He tapped them lightly. "I couldn't completely repair it, but it's safe and it'll give you heat."

I pathetically thanked him and dragged my muddy, inebriated self home, set up my heater, spent a few moments trying to locate the bathroom, then flung myself into the shower with a heartfelt moan of relief. By the time I emerged, my home was once again cozy and warm. I considered opening a can of soup in celebration, but opted instead for falling face down on my bed still wrapped in only the towel I came out of the bathroom in.

Vincent slid in just before nightfall. I had pulled a blanket over me and half buried myself under my pillows. I was now sore and exhausted, but the room had stopped its annoying habit of twitching, instead settling into a smooth even sway.

Take note. Exhaustion plus heavy drinking plus a hot shower equals one hugely bad idea.

"Hot in here." Vincent loosened his coat and frowned at the heater.

I mumbled into my pillow and realized that I was indeed sweating. However, at this point, I was not going to dispose of my blanket. I may have been shit faced drunk, but I wasn't insane.

Vincent went over to glare at the heater, then with a philosophical sigh (Translation: I suppose it could be worse) he peeled out of his jacket. I let my tired eyes close for a moment as I contemplated how I was going to get my exhausted self under the sheets and free myself from the blankets. Deciding to pull the curtain closer around my bed, I opened my eyes to find Vincent being distracting. Very distracting. As in he was nearly doing a strip tease by the fire distracting. Mind you, for all I could tell he wasn't even aware I was conscious.

Thick headed, wasn't I?

First the shirt came off. He slowly unbuttoned the first few buttons, then with a feline stretch pulled it over his head. Under it he wore a white tank top with which he repeated his stretch revealing silky skin and rippling muscles. He ran a hand slowly through his hair, as if trying to comb it back into order, then sat down on the edge of his bed to pull off his shoes. He frowned thoughtfully at them, set them aside and took off his socks tucking them into the shoes. He then gave a sleepy yawn and –damn him- stretched lazily with his arms over his head.

I was suddenly feeling warm in a totally new way.

He wasn't finished with me though. He stood back up and started tugging his belt loose. He paused, looked towards me, then apparently deciding I was asleep, took his pants off and set them aside leaving him only in a pair of briefs and leaving me frozen on my bed.

Sweet Planet he was beautiful. With his long legs, golden skin, fine bones, and perfectly toned muscles, he would have made even the finest, most talented sculptors, those that carved gods out of marble, toss in their chisels despairing of ever catching such perfection with their meager craft. Poor mortal that I was, I could only whimper silently into my pillow as the room added its own special effects by swirling in and out of focus behind him.

He gave another yawn, stretching from the tips of his toes up to the tips of his fingers, making this already tight briefs strain against rather interesting portions of anatomy and giving me a good idea that Vincent was just as beautiful under the briefs as the rest of him hinted. He glanced over at me again, as if just making sure I was asleep then ambled over to the kitchen to look for something to eat. This of course involved him bending over, giving me a supposedly innocent view of his firm, round posterior.

And people say I like to torture innocents.

After rummaging around, he pulled out a half of an uneaten sandwich and sauntered over to his bed to stretch out on the covers, open his book, and pose like a reclining god. He lay, nibbling coyly on that damned sandwich and idly flipping papers with the light from the fire casting gold and shadows on him.

I cursed my day. I was tired. I was sore. I was so drunk I couldn't even find my feet, much less stand up and walk over to him. So of course I would have a nearly naked Vincent stretched out in front of me like a scene from one of my most sensual wet dreams. Even though my muscles now felt like water, other parts of me were rock hard and weeping for attention.

He lounged there eating his sandwich for a few minutes, then with another sleepy yawn, got up and did the completely unmerciful. He took off the briefs.

I want to pause here to say one thing. He's evil. Beautiful, but evil.

I won't belabor the issue. He's perfect. At rest he is long and elegantly shaped. When aroused he's stunning. He is a sight that could raise the dead. Too bad it couldn't raise the drunken. I did give it a try. He noticed my feeble movement and turned questioningly in my direction. I froze clamping my eyes shut, reality slapping me in the face.

This was Vincent. I was Hojo.

It was one thing to look as a voyeur, it was another to actually think of acting on the impulse to reach out and touch. Dmitri with his dark eyes and pale body could touch, but not me. It was a losing and humiliating battle, so I retreated and played dead, or at least asleep.

"Hojo?" Vincent's voice was like velvet. "You awake?"

I didn't answer. Instead, I kept my eyes closed and made a small sleepy snuffling sound.

He gave a sigh that at that point I couldn't interpret since I had never been in this circumstance before. Now, having heard that sigh many times, I know just what it means. If I'd known then what it meant, I probably would have found the strength and the sobriety to leap of the bed and tackle him to the floor. (Translation: I want to fuck you silly and you're just being difficult.)

He fussed around a few more minutes then put out the light and called it a night. I stayed awake for a good long time trying to get the image of him out of my head and trying to calm my anatomy down. I decided, while I lay there, that I needed to continue with my plans for Bettina. The moisturizer would be here in a week or so, and with Bettina smelling like the flower she was, I could enjoy all the fun that my body was demanding.

Vincent, evil, perfect, Turk that he was, slept the sleep, not of the just, but of those who have set their plans and no amount of wiggling or denial would save their prey.

The next morning I leapt out of bed, regretted it, and pulled myself together enough to go off to visit Bettina. We had a pleasant repast, then, in a fit of nostalgia, and in a panic to avoid a naked Turk who'd been sleeping in late, I went down to the Tewit breeding grounds and visited with my avian friends. They didn't recognize me, but since they a) were not naked, and b) did not want me to sling mud and drink beer, I had a fine time catching up with them. We parted ways at lunch time, and I scampered, rather quickly too when I spotted a pair of overly large lizards loping over the horizon, back to the village. I waved hello to my newly bonded digger buddies as I passed the mud pits, and ambled into my boney home.

I immediately wanted to run back out. Instead, my stupid body decided that that was the time to stage a rebellion and stand frozen to the spot.

Vincent, being the creative person he was, had come up with a new fun game to while away the hours spent in Bone Village. Tormenting me. He was doing a wonderful job too. I only wondered where he found the popsicles. You know, the long ones with bright colors…Rocket Pops?

He was lazing in a chair half naked in the continuing heat of the skull, with his shirt off, his skin glowing and moist with sweat, and his bare feet propped on the table. He held a book in one hand and the popsicle in the other, giving it a blow job. At least that's what it looked like to me as I stood petrified in the door as the long, round icy treat slid through the tight "O" of his lips into his mouth then slipped back out. Back and forth, sometimes with a parting lick on the end as he caught a droplet of the melting treat. He was so absorbed in the ecstasy of sugary water that he didn't even glance over in my direction as all the blood in my body made a rush to more southerly locations.

After pleasuring his pop for awhile, he turned to acknowledge my existence with lazy, heavily hooded eyes. "Would you like one?"

_**Yes!**_ My body screamed. My mouth however mumbled, "No thank you."

He nodded and the popsicle slid back through his lips as he turned his attention back to his book. I stumbled to my bed and hid behind the curtain. The curtain and I were becoming fast friends. It didn't stop the soft slurping sounds or the pleased hum he made as he lapped at his treat.

To be honest, I would have stayed there for the rest of the day, torn between my need to go out and suck on Vincent's popsicle, and the certain knowledge that he didn't mean it that way, that there was no way on the Planet that he could want me.

Before you get all misty eyed and shaking your head saying poor Hojo, he needs to get a bit of self confidence, I want to point out one very, very important fact. You don't mess with Turks.

Ever.

Period.

If this had been any other, normal, non-weapon wielding person, I would have ventured out from behind my curtain and at the very least eyed the situation over. The consequences would, at worst, have been a bit humiliating, but I would have survived. Vincent was a Turk. He was the leader of the Turks, which is a position you do not get by being a nice person. You get it by being the most dangerous son of a bitch in the organization. Stepping even a tiny bit out of the expected behavioral norms of scientist to Turk could very well mean my ending up painfully dead, fed to the vlakorados (maybe he'd skip the dead part and just move right on to the feeing part), and my mother would get a brief, terse note that her son disappeared while on a mission to Bone Village.

You don't believe me? Just what do you think Shinra did when Vincent suddenly turned up missing?

I was not wallowing in self-depreciation. I was caught tight in the knowledge that scientists, nerdy, homely scientists, were far more likely to end up vanishing than to end up with their lips on a Turk's popsicle.

Call me silly. I have a well developed survival instinct.

My communion with the curtain came to an end when a knock sounded at the door. Vincent, popsicle probably still in hand, answered the door, and I heard Dmitri's delicate voice.

"I'm so sorry to disturb you." Dmitri nearly whispered. "I just thought you'd like to know that…"

Vincent made a small sound, "Wait, I'll be over in just a moment."

And he was gone. He only took enough time to dress and shrug into his jacket and he was out the door.

I sat quivering, cursing Dmitri, and idly wondering if I would ever be able to face a popsicle again. I really had never paid that much attention to Dmitri before. I knew he was from the Icicle area and had moved to Bone Village a few years before I arrived. He was quiet, preferred to stay either in Davies office cataloging the archaeological finds or in his own place where he cleaned each delicate piece of history that was brought to him. Even though he was well read, his nervous mannerisms such as twitching as he talked and biting his finger tips, made my nerves shriek if I spent too much time in his presence. However, he could come to the door and claim Vincent's time with nothing more than a few breathless words.

I would hate him, but I had no grounds. Vincent wasn't mine. He just liked to do strip teases by the fire for my viewing pleasure and give blow jobs to popsicles at my table while dressed in no more than a well fitting pair of blue pants.

I should have checked myself into a mental institution. I was obviously oblivious to reality.

I ventured out from behind my curtain once my breathing slowed back to normal and ambled around my skull. Vincent hadn't brought the sample back, probably worried that it would overheat, so I didn't have much to do. I searched, and after a half hour found, my music player. He'd tucked it on the bookshelf.

I watched a movie of brave pioneers who with no more than the clothes on their backs and a few sturdy, loyal chocobos conquered the hinterlands of the western continent. After a chococo pulled one brave, albeit dim witted lad out of quicksand and then ran with him as the natives tried to earn a meal of chocobo stew, I tossed the viewer down and sulked around. At dinner time, I poked around the cabinets and came up with a meal of chocobo ramen in honor of the movie, and proceeded to feel sorry for myself. Bettina was still odoriferous, Vincent was out getting laid, all I had was a second rate movie, some cheap ramen, and a group of sweaty archaeologists. It didn't help that when I went to get some ice for a glass of water, I found the rest of the box of Rocket Pops.

In desperation, I shrugged into more substantial clothing and went off to visit my new buddies. They greeted me with many a drunken, slurred cry, and I took a big gulp of fortifying air and waded into their midst. I listened to tales of dirt, more dirt, and the occasional chewed, shattered remnant of bone. As I drank down more and more beer, the tales became more and more interesting. By midnight, or there about, I was laughing hysterically with one of my good friend's arms around my shoulders as another regaled us with a fascinating tale of finding the finger bone of some prehistoric beastie, when Vincent prowled in to glare at the lot of us.

He waded through the still laughing diggers and caught me away from my friends by the scruff of my neck. "You. Go home."

I gave him a wobbly smile. "Don' wanna." I waved a beer at him as I dangled from his hand. " 'ave a drink?"

If I wasn't so sloshed, I might have noted that he was more rigid than usual and was snarling silently at my drinking buddies, who were sidling away from him rapidly. My Turk was, unknown to me, beyond angry and I was hauled out of the bar and dragged, sometimes not so figuratively, down the street. I waved goodbye to my friends, calling a few slurred promises that we'd see each other tomorrow.

Vincent tossed me into our overly cozy home with little ado. "Go take a cold shower."

I didn't want to confess I didn't know where the shower was at that point, so I just sat on the floor blinking at him and grinning stupidly. He was sort of a fuzzy blur of blue that kept wavering like a candle flame. It was quite intriguing. I would have been more than happy to spend the rest of the evening watching him flicker around like that. He had other ideas though.

"Planet, you're drunk." He hauled me up and pulled me to the bathroom.

I thought this was hilarious and giggled the entire way there. When he shoved me under ice cold water, I didn't find that quite so funny, and pouted at him. He let me go, I didn't even know he was holding me up, and let me fall into a heap on the tiled floor of the bathroom. He looked down at me from slitted, angry eyes, then turned and left me alone to drown or sober up by myself.

Now some die-hard, foolish romantics might think that Vincent was acting in a fit of jealousy. Or, worse, that once I sobered up, I staggered out of the bathroom to have delicious sex with my adorably irritated Turk to make up for all the problems I gave him, after which we declared our unknown till now feelings of love.

I always like those stories, but they rarely come true. Truth is that once I got sober enough to stand up and find the door by myself, I was a dripping, shivering mess, whose mouth tasted like the floor of a brewery, and I had to face a furious Vincent who had to walk, at midnight, through freezing weather to drag my intoxicated carcass home. These are not the makings of an even tolerable night, let alone the prelude to a night of passion and love. Besides, once I stepped out of the bathroom, I had to rush back in to throw up. Hardly a sexually appealing move. If you must know, I nearly died of humiliation the next day, after I crawled out of bed, threw up again, and tried to kill myself by drowning in the toilet.

"What were you thinking?" Vincent's voice snarled at me as I wobbled my way out of the bathroom for a second time.

I am embarrassed to say it took me awhile to locate him. He was sitting next to the fireplace flipping angrily through his book. He'd turned off the heater and had built up the fire, so the room was nearly at normal temperature. Snow was tapping in large flakes against the windows, showing up briefly against the blackness, then fading off as it slid down.

He didn't even look up at me as I stood swaying and dripping water by the bathroom door. "Drink that." He pointed to a murky glass of water on the kitchen shelf, "and go to bed."

His voice wasn't the most warm and comforting voice I had ever heard. Actually, if I had been more sober I might have stepped outside to warm up. Instead, I sloshed my way over to the glass on the counter, picked it up (after a few tries) and gulped down the contents. It was relatively disgusting, but considering what my mouth tasted like at the moment, I couldn't complain. I glanced over to where he was still vindictively reading (Yes, he can vindictively read. I have never yet seen any other person who can make the simple act of looking at and turning a page a menacing activity).

I found my bed –eventually- and collapsed in a soggy heap on top of my covers, another brilliant day done. I just prayed to whatever deity that was listening in to plastered scientists that my equipment would arrive tomorrow. I didn't think I could survive another day of my involuntary vacation. I was actually thinking fuzzily that I could sit and do paperwork tomorrow and what a relief that would be.

I got my wish, as the next day dawned horrifically bright and it was snowing heavily. Vincent was once again gone, probably over to Dmitri's bed, and I was left with the comfort of my long ignored paperwork and my overactive heater that Vincent had kindly turned back on. I made myself a pot of good Wutain tea and settled down at my table to plunge into the ever exciting word of writer's cramp.

You, children of the computer age, don't know the wide eyed wonder that we experienced when the first computers were installed in the science department. We stood around the technician, an old foul smelling man that smoked more than Mr. Highwind, like acolytes around a sacred alter. When our computer was finally left in our care, you couldn't imagine the tentatively awe-struck fingers that reached out to stroke it as visions of computerized paperwork filled our minds. We then turned into a pack of snarling wolves to be allowed to use it first and postured territorially over any infringement on our time with our new god.

By noon time, I wrenched myself away from the tedium of it all, and went to see Bettina. I, to win a few points in the game of winning the female heart, brought over a tin of candies from a Midgar confectioner.

"Hey there," she shooed me in out of the snow that was blowing in the door. "I hear you're the newest and bestest friend of a few of the boys."

I shrugged, "I got a new hobby."

"I never thought I'd hear you say that." She took the candy box as I offered it to her. "You always avoided the boys before."

"I wanted to expand my horizons." I sat down and almost instantly had a bowl of thick beef stew placed before me. "How have you been? I haven't seen you for a few days."

She laughed. "Fine, fine. Davies came over the other day. Can you guess what he got me?" Her smile was wide and excited.

I shook my head.

"Here, sniff." She held out one arm.

I tentatively gave her wrist a small sniff. She smelled beautiful, like flowers.

Her smile grew dreamy. "He said you ordered some for yourself and decided to place an order for me too. He's so sweet."

Vincent strikes again. I didn't know that then, but that's what happened. He went down to Davies' office and sneaky, observant, overly intelligent Turk that he was, gave Davies the key to his long time crush's heart –not to mention the solution to her herring problem.

I say again, don't trust a bouncingly happy Vincent.

As I grimly smiled my way through my meal, I was regaled by the wonder that was Davies. Bettina, I suppose, was even in more desperate straits than I was, considering that she'd been celibate much, much longer than I. I can't blame her for pouncing the instant Davies, after a careful sniff, showed interest.

When I was released by the one person Davies fan club, I morosely went back to my overheated skull and threw myself at my paperwork. I signed and noted and initialed till my fingers went numb. During my paper marathon, I suddenly had an epiphany. I could call Gast and explain to him that with the lack of equipment, I needed to come back to Midgar to study the sample at the main laboratory. I could be back in Midgar and my little apartment, a whole city of companions, and I wouldn't have to deal with malfunctioning heaters, male bonding rituals, or naked Turks.

The last was wishful thinking. Vincent once set on a goal, doesn't give up easily. He'd have found some reason to lounge around my apartment with little to no clothes on and since we worked in the same building, there was a good chance that he'd have shown up in my office doing suggestive things to a Rocket Pop.

And people call me merciless.

I scurried off to find my phone and with a nearly hysterical bubble of merriment, dialed Gast's office.

"Gast speaking."

I grinned like a maniac, "Professor Gast, this is Hojo."

"Hojo…" He paused, obviously trying to figure out who I was. Honestly, the man thought so little of people that he couldn't be counted on to remember their names. "Ah…my boy, how are you?"

"Oh, fine, fine." I started pacing around. "I was just calling to say that I really need equipment to analyze the sample. I ordered it, but I haven't received anything yet."

He hummed disinterestedly absently at me, but such was my desperation, that I continued.

"I would like to return to Midgar with the sample we have and begin testing. I think this could be a breakthrough in gene research." Actually, I didn't, but it turned out to be so. "A new gene!"

I have regretted saying that for years now. Someplace in Gast's brain he twisted that innocent phrase around by turning new into nova and gene into jen then combining them into…Jenova.

Have I mentioned I hated the man? Trust me, if I was going to sadistically trap someone in my lab and do horrible, unspeakable things to them just for the joy of it, I would have chosen him. That of course would have necessitated me having to spend extensive periods of time in his presence, which of course makes me having him machine gunned to death the preferable alternative.

"Yes, that does sound exciting." His voice was bored. "However, that is why we sent you there, so that you could be right on top of things."

What I was supposed to be right on top of, except dirt and snow, I, to this day, don't know.

"But, I need…" I felt my hopes disintegrating.

"Don't worry, my boy" He laughed jovially through the phone, "I'll have that equipment sent right up to you. I can't let my best and brightest perish for want of supplies!"

That was a kiss off, if you couldn't tell.

My small, pathetic hopes in ruins, I mumbled a few polite responses, and hung up. I dragged myself back to the never ending pile of reports and forms. My fingers rebelled a few times and I had to go run them under warm water, but sometime between eternity and forever, I finally initialed the last form and collapsed face down on the table. My head ached, my back ached, my fingers felt like they were crippled for life, and my stomach was snarling complaints. Lovely what paperwork, disappointment, excessive drinking, and stress can do for one.

I sprawled on the table a few more minutes then got to my feet, went had a shower, and after considering making myself another tasty meal of ramen, I went to bed. I remember waking up to toss off my blankets then waking up to pull them back on again. I had strange dreams of becoming frozen into the permafrost and sweaty diggers would use me to lean their shovels against.

Morning was a relief when it came. Vincent was still missing, but the sample, which unknown to me at the time was now named Jenova, was placidly oozing about in its pickle jar on my table. I lay in bed trying to find one even halfway decent reason to haul myself fully into the waking world. My choices were hardly appealing: play with the sample, which I had already done; go visit Bettina and hear more about Davies sexual prowess; sit and watch a movie, which I could just as well do in bed; or go sling more mud and drink more beer. I chose to pull the covers over my head and go back to sleep.

It lasted all of five more minutes till a loud knock at the door dragged me back into the waking world. Cursing Vincent for not being there to deal with this, I stumbled my way to the door, moaning at my aching shoulders and back.

"Hey, Hojo, we found some more of that ooze." One of my digger buddies greeted me. "You should come. We're trying to catch it now."

I mumbled a few half coherent words and nodded. He sauntered off towards the fields of muddy holes the diggers liked to fancy excavation pits and I staggered around getting dressed. On the way out the door, I grabbed a package of uncooked ramen and chewed on that as I trotted over to the field with the pickle jar containing the sample under one arm. A few of the villagers were standing around shouting encouragement to the people in the pits as I approached. The diggers were all scurrying around swinging their shovels.

"Over here!"

"No. I've got it."

"Damn."

"Here!"

They all scampered as a small dark blob zipped quickly through their legs.

"It's a fast one."

"Got it!"

"There!"

"Watch out, it's coming your way."

It took awhile but finally one man managed to slam his shovel down on it and stun it long enough to drop it into the pickle jar I helpfully held out. I never told Gast about that little scene. For some reason the fact that his beloved Jenova had to be chased around by sweaty archaeologists in a mud pit and smacked with a shovel just never managed to get added to conversations.

Everyone cheered and I was hauled down into the pits of mud to look at where they found the newest bit of the sample. It looked like any other piece of mud to me, and since I didn't have any equipment, not even a tiny Petri dish, I could only nod knowingly and say how wonderful it was that they'd found it. This of course was the beginning of another spectacular day slinging mud, which of course was just the prelude to more drinking, which led to me stumbling home frozen, covered in muddy slime, and literally stinking drunk.

I didn't even bother with the shower. I just fell into a chair, put my head on the table and passed out.

I woke up to the wonderful sight of Vincent glaring bloody death at me. I had, in my inebriated stupor, done the unforgivable. I got the floor, the chair, and the table dirty, not to mention I was a reeking mess. I felt horrid, I felt like I had been taken out and beaten with a shovel, my stomach felt like the sample was oozing around in it, my head was pounding, and my throat felt raw. I could only guess by Vincent's loving gaze that if my stomach did rebel, he was probably going to shoot me and bury my body under a dung hill.

"Where is the sample?" His dulcet tones ripped holes in my head.

"Sample?" I croaked.

He just gave me a warm, adoring look that made me want to run back to Midgar. "The sample."

Honestly, at that moment I didn't have a clue what he was talking about and it showed on my face. He snarled a few encouraging comments and stormed out of the skull. I dragged my aching self out of my chair and staggered off to clean up, vaguely wondering what sample he was so upset about.

He came back in less than a half hour. I was bundled up in layers of warm clothes and was scrubbing up the mess I had made the night before when he came back in with the pickle jar. I still felt awful and, for some reason, now the heater wasn't putting out enough heat, but since I had aspirations of living till at least noon time, I was down on my knees cleaning.

He set the sample on the table, gave me a warning glare, huffed a sigh at me (Translation: leave me alone now or die), and went over to his cot to do some intensive brooding. Relieved that I wasn't going to be the target in some ad hoc firearms practice, I finished my chore and retreated to my own cot and my trusty curtain.

I dozed off to the sight of him pulling out his cell phone and talking to some unfortunate on the line. His irritated snarling followed me down into my dreams. I woke up shivering to see him crouched in front of the heater inspecting the controls. When he noticed me peering around the curtain at him, he scowled at me then turned to look dolefully down at the heater.

"It's dead." He looked as if his best friend had just been hit by a car while holding on to his beloved pet and now both were road kill.

He's a great actor because, unknown to me, he killed it. I sometimes wonder if, after fulfilling an assignment, he ever stood over the corpse and looked despondently down at it pronouncing it dead. He does have an odd sense of humor, so I could see this happening.

I dragged my aching, shivering self out of bed and over to stand in mourning over the heater. "Lovely."

My voice had the sweet, soothing tone of an underlizard in mating season.

"Catch a cold?" He almost seemed amused, which for Vincent in stoic mode means the perma-scowl was slightly less intense than usual.

"The drinking is catching up to me." I choked back.

I hate drinking. The whole idea of cloning Sephiroth in the attempt to see if I could get one right –as in not psychotically butchering villages- was conceived while I was drinking. -I will have to privately admit that Cloud, who I term a failure, was actually the only success of that mindless idea of mine. Take note that he is, when not trying to kill me, everything that a father would be proud of. And I am proud of him. But don't tell him I said that, he's delicate and needs to hang on to the belief that he's the original Cloud Strife.- The notion of making a digital duplicate of myself was an idea I found at the bottom of a bottle of rum while on the beach of Costa del Sol. –I should say, since I am in the mood to explain these things, that I blame a programming error for the whole Deepground incident. I never did get the hang of those things much past word processing, so I had a so-called expert do it for me. What a mistake that was. Who was to know that all he copied was the worst and most broken parts of my psyche? If it helps, there was some poetic justice to the whole affair. He was one of the first people to disappear in Junon. I only hope that Weis got to snicker at him a bit before he got tossed in for demon chow.- The depressed and suicidal act of injecting Jenova cells into myself was also the result of an all night binge of vodka and tequila. Why do I keep doing it? It's one of the mysteries of being a man, I suppose.

I could childishly blame Vincent for those brilliant moments since he used to be the one to talk me out of my crazy alcoholically induced thoughts, but in reality, it is her. After what she did, instead of silly little schemes, like how to make my barbeque briquettes light faster (1), my thoughts turned dark and I had much less control over them. They seemed to devour my life, dragging me down into some pit in my mind where I couldn't always get back from.

He turned back to the dead heater. "We should get another."

"Back ordered." I pleasantly croaked at him, as visions of him turning blue while sucking on his Rocket Pop danced behind my eyes. _Vengeance, sweet vengeance._

"Hmmm." He turned and caught up his jacket. "I'll talk to Davies. Perhaps we could borrow one."

I nodded and figured he'd talk to Davies then disappear into the warmth of Dmitri's home and, more likely, bed. I went over to brew myself a pot of tea and check the firewood situation over. We seemed to have enough for a few days, but I made a note to make my own trek over to Davies and get some more delivered.

I glanced out the windows and noticed that the sky was darkening and the snowflakes that had been lazily drifting around the village were starting to seem a bit more purposeful. I looked worriedly at my woodpile then checked our food supplies, and despite the agonized cries of my abused self, bundled into my outdoors gear and headed out to the store. I've lived through many a week trapped inside my skull with dwindling firewood and food and no way short of risking dying in Bone Village's temperate climes to get more.

I met Vincent as he trudged back. He arched an inquisitive eyebrow at my miserable self.

"Firewood and food," I warbled with all the beauty of a vlakorados clearing its throat.

"Ordered them when I talked to Davies." Vincent eyed me carefully as if expecting me to do something interesting, like die in the middle of the street. "It'll be delivered in a half hour."

I should have known he'd have noticed things like that, but I was still dealing with the fact that Vincent was both observant and intelligent. It was a hard transition since he didn't talk much to display what was going through his mind. I also had over a year of conditioning by less than brilliant Turks to overcome.

When I didn't fall over dead, he shrugged his coat closer and went back to the skull. I blinked after him a moment, half surprised that he didn't go over to Dmitri's, then followed. There was no point standing out in the middle of a snow storm. Besides, visibility was starting to get limited, so I hurried back in as fast as my aching body would allow.

He was already sitting by the fire reading when I stepped inside and took off my recently donned outerwear. I found my book on astronomy and settled down at the table with a pot of tea and a large glass of soda bicarb to counter the festivities of the night before.

Another exciting day loomed ahead, and I didn't even have the exquisite joy of paperwork to tide me over, just tea and stars. The temperature of the skull was chilly. The snow swished softly against the windows and the fire crackled pleasantly.

In all, it could have been worse. It could have been hot and Vincent could have been doing a strip tease with a Rocket Pop. I mentally slapped myself when my bored brain decided to provide visuals of that event. I glanced over at Vincent, who seemed half asleep, and then quickly looked back down at my book fighting back a physical reaction.

The food and firewood arrived and that provided a small amount of distraction. After, I decided to play with the sample. I had a few emotions I wanted to try out, mainly out of boredom. I decided to try out the wonderful emotion of sexual arousal, since I seemed to have an unfortunate excess of that floating around my system. It also entertained me to think of writing THAT report for Gast. The sample actually started forming small spikes when exposed to my libido and I wondered what would happen if I handed it over to Vincent. I figured it would probably fall asleep. How wrong I was…

By lunch time, the temperature had dropped enough that I set the sample down, picked up my book again and went to perch on the other side of the fireplace from Vincent. He barely glanced at me and returned to his reading.

Add to the things one should know about Vincent: he is patient. He can calmly, quietly wait for an eternity for things to fall into place. Even though I didn't know it, I was doing exactly what he wanted me to do and he was more than pleased that through the afternoon I was shifting closer and closer to the fire. He didn't even seem aware of my steady migration towards warmth. He just calmly flipped pages, read, and occasionally would get up to put more wood on the fire. He even got up and cooked dinner with no more than a brief look at me as if checking to see if I was hungry.

Dinner disposed of, we settled again to our reading. The wind has picked up and now there was nothing short of a blizzard outside. I unconsciously snuggled even closer to the fire, nearly sitting on top of the grating.

"Cold?" Vincent arched an inquisitive eyebrow at me.

"I'm fine." I got to my feet and went to dig out a heavy woolen sweater out of my things.

Vincent was back in the world of his book when I returned and settled back in my place. I shivered, despite my sweater, and wondered if I should get more wood. I also noted, joy on top of happiness, that my throat was starting to feel even worse, and my nose was beginning to run.

Just what I needed.

I wrestled the knowledge that I was sick out of my head, childishly thinking if I didn't acknowledge it , it wouldn't be true. I sniffled quietly, telling myself that it was just the ash from the fire tickling my nose. I passed the sore throat off as nothing more than a byproduct of my drinking binge and swore off drinking for a month. When my stomach gwirbled at me, I blamed Vincent's peanut butter and banana sandwiches, and swore off them for a month. Aching shoulders, blurry vision, growing headache, and a few sneezes all were pushed firmly into the murky depths of denial. Until someone spoiled it all for me.

"You have a cold." Vincent was looking at me like I had just rewrote the Turk regulations and instituted a policy of their having to wear pink tutus to staff meetings.

"No, I don't." I wheezed through a sore throat and stuffy nasal passages, while trying to convince myself I had wood ash allergies. Funny how I had never had them before, but that's the way things go sometimes. "'s all'gies."

Vincent sighed (Translation: bonehead). "Go to bed before you infect me."

"I'm not sick." I coughed. Damn those allergies.

Another sigh. (Translation: Would anyone miss you if I killed you?)

"My mother would." I muttered. "She checks up on me every week."

He frowned at me. He has never liked it when I translate his sighs.

"Go take a shower." He scooted away from me.

That sounded like a good idea. It would definitely clear away any lingering allergens and I would also warm up. I got to my feet, ignored that my head felt like it was going to burst, and tottered off to the shower and steamy goodness. I was in heaven, but since all good things have to end, I came back out and promptly collapsed on my bed in a soggy, towel wrapped mess, my symptoms worse than before.

Vincent appeared at the edge of my faithful curtain with a steaming mug in his hands. "Drink."

It was some kind of herbal concoction that tasted like mowed grass, seaweed, and bug killer. If Vincent hadn't been standing over me idly playing with the hilt of his gun, I would have quickly wobbled over and poured it down the drain to clear the pipes of any lingering tree roots. As it was, I choked the stuff down and tried hard not to let it come back up.

Vincent, now done intimidating me into drinking the stuff, sat down next to me. "Turn around."

"Huh?" I wondered what other torture he was about to inflict.

"Your hair's wet." He motioned for me to turn and scooped up the towel. "You'll get sicker."

The towel…the one I had come out of the bathroom with around my waist… that towel… Oh… Good thing I had a cold… everyone knew people with colds were prone to be flushed…

He never even noticed –well, actually he did and took a lot of pleasure noticing, but I didn't realize that then. He just motioned for me to turn around again, which I did since it presented him with a slightly less interesting prospect – Much later I was told I had an adorable back end and he enjoyed the view. He then gently started drying my hair.

Few people recognize the innate sensuality of letting someone dry your hair. To do this, the other person has to sit very close to you, close enough that you can feel the heat of their body, yet far enough away that that heat is only a taunt. The other person is also touching a very vulnerable part of your body. Consider, most people when in danger, throw their arms up to protect their heads. Only if their head is in no danger will they protect other areas of their body. Letting someone who is sitting so tantalizingly close behind you take such liberties is both exciting and relaxing. The smooth firm stroke of Vincent's hands, the soft rough texture of the towel, the brush of his arms against my shoulders, if he had planned it –which he had while I was showering- it couldn't have worked better.

Too bad I was sick. The virus, combined with my new routine of drunken stupidity, and the ups and downs of the heating situation all combined with his ministrations. I fell asleep sitting in the circle of his arms, my head resting against his shoulder.

Romantics would probably like me to say here that I woke up in his arms and we made love in the morning light. That didn't happen. I know, you keep hoping, but face it, things just don't happen like that. A cold is a cold and believe me, you don't wake up with amorous thoughts in your head. You wake up wishing that you could breathe and wondering if small evil elves sand blasted your throat while you were asleep.

Vincent was gone, probably to less germ infested climes, and I and the sample were on our own. I crawled my way out of bed, stumbled over to the kitchen to find that he'd left me some more herb tea and a threat dire enough that I gulped the stuff down quickly while glancing around wondering if he was spying on me from some hidden vantage point. He was also kind enough to leave my little music/video player on the counter next to a plate of toast and a glass of juice.

I spent the rest of the day in bed watching a movie about a heroic team of heroes that searched the Western Continent's desert for their lost friend who had been viciously kidnapped by a man with a facial twitch and a habit of laughing at inappropriate moments. By the end of the movie, I was half cheering for the bad guy, hoping he would triumph and do away with the idiots and their heartfelt, platitude filled speeches about how their friendship and love would win the day. I was actually disappointed when those moronic speeches proved true.

I took a nap, woke to find that a dish of scrambled eggs and toast was now sitting on a small table next to my bed being kept warm under a cover. Another cup of that oh-so-special tea was sitting next to it, with another cheery threat. I didn't even bother reading what he'd do to me if I didn't drink the concoction. I just gulped it down and then, once my stomach settled, ate my meal.

I won't bore you with the details of the rest of my days of illness. They weren't all that spectacular. I drank that fowl stuff every eight hours. Vincent left me meals and kept as far away as he could without totally abandoning me. I used up my small store of movies and had to watch reruns. I read my books, fiddled with paperwork, poked at the sample, called the office and was told the sample was now called Jenova, cursed my boss, updated my résumé, and idly planned how to grow my own herb garden on the patio of my apartment in Midgar when I returned. In all, I was nearly crazed with the need to escape when Vincent finally appeared, looked me over and pronounced that he wouldn't shoot me if I stepped outside of the skull.

I took that as a sign of freedom and bundled into my things and escaped into Bone Village. It was beautiful. The snowstorm had dropped about three feet of snow on everything and it still had a pristine, festive look to it. The mud pits had finally frozen over and the diggers were now putting their skills to use by digging out the streets and walkways, creating mountains of snow. Davies and Bettina waved to me as they dragged a sled off to a local hill where the kids could already be heard shrieking in glee. I would have joined in, but my personal cloud of doom chose that moment to slither by and give me a warning look.

No sledding.

I didn't let it slow me down for long. I went over to the store and chatted with a few temporarily out of work archaeologists. We had a fine time and in the continued spirit of male bonding, they invited me over to the bar. Seeing that I had been sick, I forwent the alcohol and while my buddies got plastered, I drank hot cider, which was a good thing since my gloomy self-appointed guardian angel came over and inspected my drink then bent over and whispered a few sweet nothings in my ear about what he would do to me if he caught even a small whiff of alcohol on my breath.

No drinking.

After watching my friends descend into the realms of inebriated idiocy. I went home and found Vincent back in his place by the fire and the whole skull freshly cleaned. He barely looked up at me as I came in, just nodding and returning to his book. I cheerfully went over and pestered Jenova with happy thoughts for a while, then called the office to see when my equipment would arrive –between next fall and never.

"If you aren't doing anything tomorrow," Vincent looked over the top of his book at me. "We are going to the City of the Ancients." He looked down again. "You might be useful."

Oh so casual. I might be useful... We are going…

And I fell for it.

"Okay." I had always wanted to see where the ancients had lived. I had a small fascination for them ever since I was a boy. "What time."

He didn't even bother looking up. "Early."

I nodded and returned to my puttering. When I realized there was nothing left to putter at, I grabbed up my coat and headed outside.

"Where are you going?" Vincent's voice could have stopped a rampaging Materia Keeper. "It's dark."

I had been planning on going over to see Davies, but I suddenly had a change of plans. I took off my coat. "Nowhere."

He was glaring at me over the top of his book. "Go to bed. We're leaving early."

Oh the choices. Stay up and experience great bodily injury or go to bed and visit the City of the Ancients. I went to bed.

When Vincent means early, he means early. I was hauled out of bed in the wee hours of the morning, bundled into my heaviest clothing, and nearly smothered by a thick scarf and hat. He shrugged into his jacket and grabbed his Lunar Harp. We slipped, literally since there was now a slick patch of ice on the step, out the door and stood looking around for a few minutes.

"Let's not wait." Vincent headed off towards the cavern that lead to the Sleeping Forest. "It's warmer in the forest and it's not dangerous."

Not dangerous as long as you have a Lunar Harp. I've heard some rather ghastly stories about that place. Yes, yes those lost clones made it their base, Vincent loves to prowl around it, and the failure waltzes through it now and again to pay his respects to the Ancient, but they aren't exactly normal are they? Speaking as a normal, or close to normal, person, that forest is a nightmare without the harp. It was created by the Ancients to guard their city from intruders, namely Jenova. The trees are sentient and their roots, branches, and leaves are all deadly. To make it even more special, those damn plants can cast high level spells like petrify, ice, aqualung, and bolt. Death by tree has never been high on my to-do list.

We entered the forest and loitered around under the glowing trees listening to them hum to themselves. Where it had been winter where we had just been, it was now only cool and slightly spring-like. Vincent and I disposed of our layers of clothes. Vincent merely dropped his at the entrance to the cavern, so I took that as an indication that the weather up ahead was probably going to be mild. I couldn't imagine my delicate, heat addicted, city boy abandoning his one means of staying warm if there was any chance that the weather would turn nippy.

Vincent leaned against one trunk strumming the harp and drifting off into quiet thoughts. I inspected the trees and pondered asking Vincent to bring me back after the equipment arrived. At that moment, I felt the trees were far more interesting than Jenova.

To this day, I still think the trees would have been a more fruitful avenue of study. Yes, Jenova did turn out to have quite a few interesting applications, and when combined with mako, the results were rather spectacular. However, early in the research, I realized that Jenova had quite a few drawbacks as far as side effects were concerned. Gast brushed them aside as trivial and ordered the research to continue. As time went on, and my sanity became shakier, I started agreeing more and more with Gast's viewpoint. I also noted that my proximity to Jenova also seemed to influence my outlook on Jenova's viability for scientific research.

That always worried me. Again I say, I am happier on another continent.

The loitering continued for awhile. Vincent's harp playing improved a bit. I got whapped by a tree when I tried to break off a twig. The trees twinkled and whispered amongst themselves. I vaguely started wondering if I should head back into the village and grab some food. Breakfast had been rather sparse, which if you consider my dietary habits is really saying something.

We waited a bit longer then Vincent straightened up and gave the cavern a sigh (Translation: I've waited long enough.) and started through the forest.

"Keep up, or the trees will get you." He called encouragingly over his shoulder.

I scampered after him rubbernecking around like a hick from Gongaga visiting Midgar for the first time. We wove through the trees and came on an area that seemed more barren, the trees laying in broken pieces on the ground. Vincent stopped and motioned me to be still.

"There are monsters here." He nodded to where a couple of shimmers slipped through the blasted forest.

They slipped through the broken trunks of the trees looking a lot like huge oversized seahorses. They seemed to just drift aimlessly around. Every once in a while they dipped down to the ground where I could see something else moving.

"Just wait." Vincent was watching them carefully. "When they go over there," he nodded towards a rocky outcrop, "we'll run. Just follow me and keep close."

I tensed and waited for Vincent to move. The creatures took their time, but eventually, they drifted over to the rocks and started dipping their heads as if eating something that grew on the rocks. Vincent caught my hand and ran, zigzagging through the dead trees. In a few breathless moments, we were on the other side, standing on a path of what looked like crushed seashells leading down into a misty area.

I was about to head down when Vincent yanked me back.

"There's always a monster here." He held out a spell.

I didn't recognize it, but since I was never very good at those things, I wasn't surprised. For some reason, magic just irritates the hell out of me. It's just completely illogical. I suppose that I got over it to some extent while raising Sephiroth. The boy leaked magic, which wasn't surprising either, if you think of the things his loving mother, and I'm not talking about Jenova, did to him. I was saddened and I felt I had failed my son when he went insane, but I wasn't shocked. In some ways I expected it. What was our entire time together except my desperate attempt to save him from her manipulations?

I never learn.

Vincent stepped forward and started towards the path. I saw a faint blur then Vincent tossing something.

Have you ever seen the third level bolt spell? I certainly hadn't. I got a rather nasty surprise as the area exploded in brilliant light and thunder, but I was not nearly as nasty as the monster. It didn't even have time to squeal before it became ash. Vincent barely bothered to acknowledge the kill, just turning away and walking down the path calmly. For all I could tell, he blasted small beasties into dust everyday just before lunch and was getting a bit bored by it all.

"It should be safe now, but stay close." He nodded towards the misty area. "We'll wait for the others there."

I blinked at where the ashes of the monster were still floating to the ground then at his receding back.

I repeat, don't mess with Turks.

The rest of the path was smooth and clear. When we got to the city, I stood and gaped at the giant seashells for a bit, then noticed the etchings on some of the walls, which led me to the interiors of the shells, that showed me the lighting system. I bounced around for a bit like a tyke on a sugar rush, nearly running from one interesting thing to the next. I had brought my notebook and a few small plastic baggies –bought from Davies' store since I hadn't received anything from Shinra yet- and put them to use collecting small scrapings from the shell houses and recording what images I could.

Vincent ambled around seemingly ignoring my existence. He would stroke his hands over the shells and kneel down to look at the dead gardens, sometimes running his fingers through the dirt as if testing it to see if it could still grow anything.

I have heard the failure and his dimwitted companions worrying about Vincent when he disappears. The little brat ninja even thinks that he returns to the mansion and his coffin. He wouldn't. He despises that place as much as I do. I've always known exactly where he is when he's not flamboyantly saving the world. He's there, in the Ancient's city. It's the place that he fits the best.

Oh, he loves Wutai, but there is always a barrier between him and that place. For him, it's a nice place to visit and unwind, but it isn't his home. The City of the Ancients is his home. As I watched him fingering the dead soil, I could almost hear the click as his jagged edges slipped into place in that city, like the last puzzle piece snapping into place in a complex pattern.

If you ever wondered, I only partially lied to Sephiroth. It wasn't his mother who was the Ancient.

Looking back at all that happened, I should never have left Vincent to sleep in Nibelhiem. I should have brought him to that city to recover from her perversions. It would have been better for him. Perhaps there, those demons would have left him in peace and he could have regained his strength. I can only claim that my own mind was in too many shambles to think clearly. By the time I realized my mistake, it was too late. He was conscious and would have killed me instantly if I dared to try to move him.

He looked up from the dirt and nodded towards the east. "There's a house over there that's quite interesting."

I looked over and saw a large conch shell house with a lake in front of it and a bridge like path skirting the edge of the lake. My feet were already drifting me closer as I took in the details. It was larger than the other houses and in better condition. The bridge, which I was already stepping on, was also in good condition, with only a few broken rails and loose boards.

Vincent trailed closely after me running his fingers along the railing as he walked. When I glanced back to take in the expanse of the lake, he was almost dreamily looking over my head at the house in front of us. He lowered his gaze and blinked sleepily at me.

"Did you see the fish?" He gestured with a lethargic hand towards the water.

I, naïve innocent that I was, scampered over to the edge of the bridge to look leaning against the rail excitedly. I didn't see anything, and frowned down at the water.

"Try over there. The water's deeper." He nodded towards an area that the railing had come away from.

Clueless, I scurried over to it and looked down into the water with Vincent trailing after me. The water was deeper here, and I peered eagerly in, searching for movement.

That's when Vincent, evil, ruthless, conniving Turk that he was –and is- made his move.

"Hojo! Get down!"

I didn't even have time to look around when I felt his hand shove me firmly forward into the lake. As I was submerged in the icy water, I heard a blast from another spell going off behind me. I floundered around wondering if I should do something, but seeing that all I had on me was a few plastic baggies and a now sodden notebook, I wasn't all that sure what I could do to help a trained Turk. I started worrying when the silence after the spell's detonation stretched out.

"Vincent?" I called softly as I swam closer to the bridge.

He appeared dusting monster dust off his clothing. "I don't see any more, but stay put for a moment."

He disappeared again and I could hear his footsteps tapping softly on the bridge planks. That should have given me a clue. Vincent is absolutely silent if he feels the need for caution. Only when he's relaxed does he let himself let people know where he is. I didn't know that though, so I stayed quiet in the frigid water, clinging to a support piling of the bridge.

He ambled around a little –the jerk- then deigned to come back. "All clear."

By this time I had turned blue. He casually reached down and hauled my numb body out of the water and back onto the bridge. There was a large burn spot on the bridge from where the spell had exploded, but no trace of the monster.

Not surprising since there was no monster in the first place. I remember when I learned about that. We were eating lunch at a café in Junon. He'd been sent there to deal with a string of break-in murders that was frightening the local populace. He'd tracked the loser down to an apartment in one of the nicer sections of the city and spent an hour or more –he'd never clarify that point- explaining why senselessly killing people for money and thrills was a bad idea. He used a short bladed knife to do the explaining and had called me afterwards to come visit him there, which meant he was stressed out, unhappy, and his nerves were in shreds. He hated wet work.

So there we were in a café when he casually mentioned that there had never been a monster on the bridge.

"No monster?" I frowned at him swallowing a bite my chocobo salad sandwich.

He shook his head. "No. I made it up."

I took another bite of my lunch, thinking over those happy moments in the water. "You mean you left me there treading water while you strolled around letting me freeze."

"Pretty much." He had already devoured his lunch, a prime rib sandwich, and was now snitching potato chips from my plate and eyeing the other half of my sandwich. For such a thin person, he eats an extraordinary amount.

"Why?" I slapped his hand away as he made his move on my defenseless lunch.

He sulked at me, knowing that I wouldn't eat that half of my meal –my appetite was never a match to his- then waved for the waitress. "I wanted you out of those clothes, and letting you swim around for a bit seemed like the likeliest way to get that done."

"You could have just asked!" I glared at him as he ordered more lunch.

Unrepentant wretch that he is, he just grinned. "But it was so fun to watch you squirm." He settled back in his chair, smiling. "Besides, it worked didn't it?"

Jerk. Why do I have to be in love with him?

I stood shivering on the dock as he looked around, as if keeping an eye out for more unexpected attacks. The area seemed safe, but he didn't seem in the mood to take chances. He glanced over at me then started hurrying me towards the shell house we'd been heading for.

"Get inside." He kept one hand on my lower back, pushing me forward.

Not wanting to meet anything that Vincent had to blow to ash (again), I stumbled quickly into the house. He briefly left me to scout the rest of the rooms. I stood shivering violently and dripping on the floor, not even interested in the light that gleamed next to me. I leaned against the wall trying to listen for anything sounding like Vincent using another spell. I couldn't feel my feet, my hands were tingly and clumsy, and I felt exhausted. And it wasn't even noon yet.

He came back and nodded. "It's safe."

That depended on your interpretation of safe.

He looked me over then pulled me away from the wall. "There's a bed up ahead with blankets. You can get out of those wet things there."

I barely had enough sense to chatter, "Clothes?"

He shrugged, "We'll have to wait till they're dry."

I was hustled up the spiral of the shell past what looked to be a stairway leading down through the center of the house, and up to the very top. As he promised, there was a neatly made bed with a clean blanket. I grabbed for the blanket, only to have it pulled out of my reach.

"Wet clothes off." Vincent tossed the blanket back to the bed.

I managed to wiggle out of my sweater, but the cotton turtle neck was beyond me since I had trouble feeling my fingers. I didn't even want to consider my pants. Vincent watched me struggle for a bit, then sighed at me. (Translation: You are such a burden.)

I shot him an irritated look.

"Here, let me help." He reached out and grasped the hem of my turtleneck then pulled it over my head in one smooth move.

I swayed slightly and stumbled backwards as I came free. He reached forward and caught me by the shoulder, his hand deliciously warm against my skin. He steadied me a second then reached down for my pant's zipper. I blushed and tried to bat his hands away.

"Stay still, the cloth's wet." He muttered, his hands back on my pants.

"I…I…I…" I stuttered.

His clever fingers worked the button free and slid down the zipper. "There, got it."

My pants hit the floor with a sodden thump. I was going to sit on the bed, dressed in nothing by my wet, now see-through boxers, when he shook his head.

"It all comes off."

"Wha…?" I barely had time to process that when my boxers followed my pants.

He pushed me to sit on the bed. I instantly grabbed the blanket and pulled it around me as he knelt down and pulled my shoes, socks, and the rest of my clothing free. He tossed them over to the side of the room and looked me over.

"Blue is not your color." He sighed. (Translation: The things I do for you.) "Move over."

I didn't move. My brain had shut down again from recalibration as he kicked off his shoes and nudged me to move further onto the bed.

"Hojo, you're recovering from a cold. I do not need you to catch pneumonia." He scooted back on the bed and pulled me over to him.

It was completely unfair. There I was, with Vincent's body pressed against mine, and I was a shivering, blue wreck. Vincent leaned back, laying us both down on the bed. For a relic of the Ancient's it was amazingly comfortable, firm where it should be firm, soft and yielding where it should be soft and yielding, and it smelled like fresh herbs in the springtime dusk.

If Rufus really wants to put Shinra back together, he should travel up to the City of the Ancients and figure out those beds. He'd be back on top of the world in a matter of months as sleep deprived people learned of this wonder bed.

My sliding decent into relaxation was interrupted by Vincent.

"Hmm. This might work better if…" Nice of him to give a warning.

The blanket was yanked away, and was then wrapped around both of us. He pulled me closer, snuggling me against his body, my body draped over his, my cheek resting against his collar bone. He was heavenly, warm and smelling faintly of cedar smoke. I nuzzled closer and let my eyes drift shut imagining what it would be like to do this when he wasn't just trying to warm me up after being attacked by a monster and being shoved into a freezing cold lake. As I drifted closer to sleep, I could imagine what it would be like to have his hands caress along my back as my lips and tongue played along his throat. I wondered what sounds he would make, what it his skin would feel like beneath the palms of my hands, what I would feel like to him as we moved against each other.

My mind started trying to nudge me awake, insisting that I needed to get my thoughts out of sleepy, impossible dreams and pay attention to something. I told my mind to shut up, that I was enjoying myself, but it kept demanding wakefulness. I forced my eyes to open and realized why my mind was being such a bother. Unknown to my conscious mind, by lips had been doing just what I'd been thinking of and Vincent, instead of grabbing another spell and turning me into so much ash, was making a soft pleased hum in the back of his throat and gently stroking my back.

_He's allowing… _

I stopped what I was doing and looked up at him warily. He looked down at me, his eyes shadowed and revealing nothing, but his hands stroked lightly up my backbone.

"Yes?"

"I…uhhh…" I desperately tried to get my mouth to say something intelligent.

"Shhh… You think too much." He rolled us both over and trapped me under him.

His clothes were dropped to the floor a few minutes later, and keeping me warm was not an issue for long.

People, mostly the same people who watch me with thinly veiled hatred in their eyes, sometimes ask if Vincent was a nice submissive. I, who perpetrated such torture on him, must, by definition, have been the dominant one in the relationship. I generally just walk away from them, or if I'm in one of my less sane moments, find something to keep them occupied. All they really want is hear how I sadistically humiliated Vincent, thereby fulfilling some sick, perverted fantasy they have of doing the same. The fact is that neither of us was consistently the submissive or the dominant one. I preferred being the submissive during sex, but Vincent also enjoyed it on occasion, and sick fantasies of our lives aside, I could never bare to deny him what he wanted.

It really all depended on our mood. Vincent liked to be on the receiving end when he was under stress. He liked feeling protected and cared for. I preferred being on the bottom, unless I'd had a really trying day at work –such as a long meeting with Gast about his latest insane project- then I'd want to be on top, enjoying the feeling of being able to do something good that day for at least one person.

In everyday interactions, Vincent was the one to set the pace, and I was more than pleased to let him. He was far more organized than me and didn't get lost in hazes of research or, much to my continuing embarrassment, after work drinks with my coworkers. He was conscientious, loving, and, when not mischievously pretending to be "moody Turk" –and yes, he did that deliberately- very caring.

I am not too proud to admit that without Vincent my life turned quickly into a black hole. I often would wake up in the morning without a clue as to what I had done the day before, so I would go to the office and check out the security footage from my lab. (Which should give you a hint about just how bad things got.) I would be shocked to see myself babbling crazed endearments to experiments, or perhaps performing a pointless experiment on some poor thing without remembering such small niceties like anesthetic or scientific protocol. When I checked my paper work, it would be half coherent and would sometimes inform me that I'd been wandering around like that for weeks.

It was sometime the next day before we managed to pull ourselves back through the cavern and return to Bone Village. Nobody really missed us. Jenova was still slithering around her jar. Bettina was lost in the wonder that was Davies. My digger buddies had found a skull of some kind and were all on a nonstop drinking spree to celebrate the find, and Dmitri barely nodded to Vincent as we bundled our way back into our cozy little skull, closed the door behind us and went tumbling onto the nearest bed to continue our newfound past time.

* * *

Author's Notes:

(1) There actually is a group of scientists that have a barbeque briquette lighting competition. Some of the plans and results are really funny. Try picturing a barbeque exploding into a mushroom cloud, instantly incinerating the briquettes, and you have a good idea of what the results are like.


	6. Love

AN: Who me? Sing karaoke in a bar? Drunk? Never. I can't imagine where you get these ideas…

Once a Man

Chapter 6: Love

* * *

I always loved the stories about how two lovers would be trapped in a cabin and out of sheer desperation, make love, only to realize that they were both in love with each other the entire time, but were too unsure of themselves to confess their feelings. I suppose I love these stories because it gives me a voyeuristic look at other luckier people, even if they are fictional.

My romantic associations since Vincent have been completely shallow. Oh, once in a while one of the bed partners I've chosen for the evening will suddenly declare undying love for me. I never believe them. I usually choose them for their bodily attributes and their willingness to do as I wish, hardly the basis even for the shallowest of relationships. Every once in awhile, I would look at the young man or woman who had spread themselves so willingly for me to please myself with and wonder what kind of desperation would drive someone to abase themselves so thoroughly. I didn't bother asking the twin question of what desperation would drive someone to abase themselves by using that person. I already knew that answer.

Vincent and I were not in love, not then, not at first. We were merely two people who were living in close proximity and surprisingly had compatible interests when it came to sex. We continued our daily lives with little alteration. I didn't need to plot how to get laid, and Vincent didn't spend as much time with Dmitri. It was convenient, pleasurable, and relaxing for both of us.

It didn't solve all our problems. The equipment I needed didn't arrive for another three months. Vincent finally started threatening various people and had a couple of Turks stationed, snarling like a pair rabid Nibel wolves in the requisition office. While we suddenly got all sorts of luxurious items (a new heater, state of the art kitchen equipment, a large new bed –put to good use-, a new stereo with a wide variety of music, all the bestselling books, gourmet food items, a gleaming wood burning stove that could heat my little skull home quite efficiently and was a quarter of the mess –Vincent adored that-, and new comfortable furniture.) the lab equipment wasn't one of those sought after things.

In our boredom, we developed all sorts of hobbies. I went back to studying the Tewits, learned to shoot, studied the Ancients and, with more than a little prodding from Vincent, cut down on my drinking. Vincent learned to ski, arranged to test firearms for Shinra –mainly by killing of any scaly intruders to my Tewit studies-, took an interest in botany, and became an expert on the City of the Ancients. Many of the books that lived in the new gleaming, cherry wood bookcase were about Ancient studies and plants.

We got along very well. He's a very pleasant roommate to have. He's compulsively clean and not a bad cook, once we got adequate food supplies. I tried to keep up my end by keeping things picked up (he's clean, not tidy) and, once he introduced me via the telephone to the Turks keeping us in luxurious items, I made sure we were always well stocked with whatever we might need. We were both generally quiet people when at home. Our personalities melded quite pleasantly with few real aggravations –my continued association with the boys and coming home drunk and dirty always irritated him- but to be fair, his disappearing occasionally into Dmitri's home irked me –he did say that he didn't have a sexual relationship with the man, but it still grated.

I really cannot pinpoint the exact moment I realized that I loved him. I don't think that it happened in one big flash of insight, and I don't think it happened like that with him. I know I didn't love him when the equipment finally showed up. I had half expected him to disappear back to Midgar at the time and while I admitted to myself I would miss him a bit, it was no more than parting with a friend. When he remained, I was only pleasantly surprised, but not overwhelmingly so.

In the months that followed as I started testing the sample, I don't think I loved him then either. Shinra finagled another building for me to do my testing in, a rib cage of some beastie that someone had converted by packing layers of dirt between the ribs, making it a turf-bone monstrosity. It was warm, but it was also dark and made me feel that I'd been devoured and was awaiting digestion. In the brief spring of Bone Village, the grass that grew on the sides of the building sprouted and made it look like the thing had gangrene. I spent days in that lovely ribcage, lost in my research, and I didn't miss him more than occasionally wondering if I could get him to clean my lab for me.

When we were together at home, we discussed what he'd found in the City of the Ancients, or he'd take me out to a field and teach me how to shoot a gun. At night we slept in the same bed and often spent long otherwise dull evenings exploring just what kinds of sounds we could get the other person to make.

Vincent was (and to be fair, probably still is, since you don't forget something like that) a talented lover. Unlike some lovers I'd had, he carefully observed the reaction a touch, a lick, or a caress would elicit from his partner. He enjoyed experimenting to see if and when I liked soft touches and slow strokes or hard, pain laced pleasure. Instead of pretending to know everything, he would query, in voice guaranteed to melt the glacier near Icicle Village, what I liked and how things felt. I learned quite a bit writhing around with him all those months.

Six months later, when we returned to Midgar, I felt a definite pang when the helicopter touched down and our paths parted. He walked away with the welcoming committee of Turks without a glance in my direction, so I doubted he was deeply in love. I shoved that twinge of pain away and returned to my lab with barely a nod of acknowledgement from the department secretary.

In the months that followed, as we both settled back into our lives. He didn't make any effort to resume our relationship. In fact, I never saw him, not even lurking around at lunch. I went back to my apartment and after a weekend cleaning spree getting rid of the accumulated dust, spiders, and other unwelcome signs of abandonment, had the odd notion that I should get Vincent's opinion on my cleaning skills. I started my herb garden using some of the knowledge that I had absorbed living near Vincent and listening to him talk about the things he'd learned. When I unpacked, I found some of the books he'd handed me recommending them as either informative or enjoyable. I went to work, watching the Turks sweat in the summer heat in their uniforms, wondering if Vincent was out sweating too.

I was hopeless.

In desperation, trying to get him out of my head, I started a relationship with a rather burly young man with pale hair and blue eyes, as physically different from Vincent as I could get. His name was Will. He was loud and often crude, but he was fun loving and kept me company when I needed to escape from my thoughts.

Now that I think of it, he was remarkably like Mr. Highwind, but without the smoking. I wonder if they were related?

Never mind. It's not important.

Work was the same. My staff took over the majority of the Jenova studies, leaving me free to shuffle paperwork and go through the annual budgets (Which I suspected was the real reason I was returned from my icy holiday. Gast hated doing the budget and probably recalled me to take over that task so he could suck up to the president. I think that actually might have been literal, but I never cared, nor had the stomach to find out.) I spent long hours stuck carefully tallying expenditures, results, and cost projections for the next fiscal year.

So life chugged merrily along for three long months. Jenova was, after much intensive study, deemed interesting, but since we had so little of the sample and were having trouble making viable copies of it for adequate research, it was placed in the long term research section of the department, which means that a minimal staff, budget, and equipment were allocated to it. After the budget was submitted, I was put to work on bio-chemical research looking for a way to reduce hospitalization time in our military. Shinra hated having to pay out good money on people who were just laying around doing nothing but bleeding on sheets and bandages Shinra had to pay to get cleaned. When I wasn't working, I was either out with Will, getting drunk mainly, or sitting in my apartment trying to pretend everything was just amazingly wonderful.

It all came to an end when I was out with Will humiliating myself in a desperate effort to prove just how amazingly wonderful my life was.

In short, I was out debasing myself with karaoke.

I was drunkenly warbling some idiot song about how my life would go on after I died –which considering everything I knew about the Ancients, the life stream, and the like, I didn't feel was really worth all the melodramatics- but it had a catchy tune and, as I said, I was drunk. Few, if any, of the other patrons cared. The bar was known for the cheap drinks, darkly lit booths, lumpy pool table, and its close proximity to a rather sleazy hotel that rented rooms by the hour.

_When this life is over,_

_I will meet you there._

_My life will go on._

I trilled, idly wondering when this stupid song would end and release me back into the happy land of beer and pretzels.

_We will meet again_

_Where the tide never ends._

Will glanced over at me from where he was playing pool with another young man. I would say I was jealous, but honestly, Will was really meant very little to me and I was already coming to see that perhaps we should part ways. He kept me busy but he wasn't very talented as a lover. Unlike Vincent, he didn't ask, or care, to find out what I liked. He just did what he liked and if I got off on it that was okay too. We didn't have intercourse much, and I was beginning to hope that he'd go find another body to exercise his limited talents on.

_I will go on._

_Our love will last forever._

Just like the song, I thought as I saw yet another line scroll onto the monitor.

_My love I will meet you_

_On the other side._

_Let us not forget._

_We have it set._

I kept doggedly at it as yet more lines cued up. A small group of newcomers came in and sat down in the back of the bar in an intense group. It wasn't an uncommon occurrence. I'd seen my share of faces that usually were framed by Turk blue sit in the back booths dressed in dirty leathers and smiling shark smiles at unsuspecting tuna. Just as long as I kept my mouth shut about their real jobs, the Turks kept theirs shut about my after work entertainments.

_I will go on!_

_Our love will go on!_

_We will go on!_

Finally, the song ended. I took a flamboyant and completely ignored bow, and escaped from the stage. Will was leaning against the pool table sipping his beer and chatting with his opponent. I went over to them, catching a waitress on my way and requesting a well deserved beer.

"Hey, babe." Will threw a thick arm around my shoulders. "Mikey here wants to go another round. "iz that okay."

I hated being called babe, but he didn't mind that I thought the term demeaning. I was no one's baby, especially not his.

He didn't wait for an answer. He just laughed a bit, dropped his hand to give me a playful feel, then turned towards the pool table and started racking up the balls. Mikey smirked at Will and they started their game. I never figured out the niceties of pool, so I went to sit on a bench to the side and when the waitress arrived with my beer, sat and watched the two play.

Another happy victim volunteered to go up and sing. I waved for another beer and watched the unfortunate slob butcher an innocent song. A few more people came in and huddled in shadowy booths. A few only lasted as long as it took to work out what arrangements brought them in then left. Some ladies –and I use the term loosely since they only minimally looked like the female sex- walked in and took over most of the seats at the end of the bar, laughing loud horse like laughs that Heideggar would have been proud of. I slumped, ordered beers, watched Mikey and Will flirt with each other in a overly macho way, and wondered if I hadn't been better off on stage singing.

"What do you mean I touched the ball?" Mikey suddenly yelled, throwing his pool cue at Will.

"You fucking touched the ball." Will growled back. "I saw it, you fuckin' liar."

Mikey, not about to lose the manly contest, snarled and threw himself at Will, who swung at him with his cue. They both went down in a heap. This caught the attention of a few other patrons who ambled over to see what the excitement was about. As Mikey and Will rolled around trying to hit each other and screaming insults, they knocked into the gawkers which made them unhappy, which of course made the fight spread.

I, now trapped on my bench by the melee that was spreading around me, tried to get out of the way. I have never liked bar fights. They are unpredictable, and this one was no exception I realized as I noticed that a few of the people were now stealthily sliding their hands into pockets and withdrawing weapons. I was doing pretty well in my escape till someone decided that I looked belligerent and slammed their fist, wrapped in a crude version of iron knuckles, into my stomach.

I went down instantly into the land of kicking feet and shifting legs. I remember only a few moments of being there before some nice person decided to put me out of my terror by kicking me in the head. When I got back to being conscious, the fight was over and people were fleeing out the doors as fast as they could. Bodies lay sprawled around the room, some of them bleeding, and I was being unceremoniously hauled by the back of my shirt collar into one of the back booths as someone was having a hissing, snarling conversation.

"I thought I told you to keep an eye on him." Someone hissed like a Midgar Zolom with a toothache.

"I… was. I was." Someone cringed verbally back. "It j…just all exploded too fast."

"That's not a good excuse." Mr. Zolom snarled –I wasn't sure if I was happy to be conscious enough to realize I was being dragged around by a man since that also brought back the awareness that I had just been used as a soccer ball. "You should have been on top of the situation."

"Ya blew it rookie." Someone laughed snidely.

"And who was that blond who had his hands on him?" Mr. Zolom went back to hissing as I was tossed into a booth, my head smacking into the wooden seat.

I would have protested the treatment but since I seemed to be the one Mr. Zolom was so irritated about I kept my moans to myself.

"Ah…t…th...that was his companion. They've been dating for a few months." Mr. Rookie stuttered out. "I..it doesn't l…l…look too serious on either of their parts."

I was just blinking non-blurry sight back into my eyes when Mr. Zolom slapped a wet towel on my face with all the care of a mother Gighee nuzzling her offspring –in case you're wondering Gighees eat their young.

"And what were your orders?" Mr. Zolom sounded like he was about to sink his fangs into his prey. Oddly, I was beginning to recognize his voice.

"I…I was supposed to keep him safe and to carefully screen any person who came in regular contact with him." Mr. Rookie sounded like he was reconsidering his career choice, considering who I suspected he was and who was smothering me with a towel, I wasn't too surprised.

"In case you're wondering, rookie, that means he's Turk property and no one but Turks come near him." The snide laugher commented.

I felt insulted. I was not Turk property and as soon as I got that towel off my face, I was going to tell Vincent that. Maybe I'd kiss him first…or pass out. Breathing was getting a bit difficult. I started trying to get the towel off my face, which made Vincent all the more determined to keep it on my face. Spots were dancing in front of my eyes.

"N…no one t…told me…" I could hear Mr. Rookie shaking, his various hidden weapons clinking softly together.

You can always tell a new Turk, they have a fetish for being walking arsenals. Only after a year or so do they realize that all those knives, guns, garroting wires, pocket explosives, and other fun gadgets are just getting in the way and they specialize in one or two weapons with a handy, folding knife as a backup and general all around tool. If you're ever in a pinch for a gift for a Turk, buy then a nice folding knife. They'll love you for it.

"Now you know." Mr. Zolom, commonly known as Vincent, snarled and apparently decided to emphasize his point by shooting at his subordinate, making him shift his focus from "cleaning me off" to chastising which gave me an opportunity to escape from the towel.

I took a few much needed breaths as Vincent blew holes in the wall and floor around his fleeing rookie. Turk initiation is tough. I suppose instead of years of college, lack of sleep, poor nutrition, and the merciless climb through the ranks of academia to become a scientist, Turks just get all the torture out of the way in a matter of months. You might even consider it a more civilized course of training when you consider the petty backstabbing and politicking that goes on in the world of science. Of course, in academia, few people actually die when they mess up.

Vincent then turned his joyous attitude towards the others. "And what are your excuses?"

Mr. Snide shrugged. "I was in Wutai till yesterday."

"I didn't recognize him when we came in." Another replied from where he was kicking the bodies on the floor. "When I did spot him, the fight was already in progress and I couldn't get over to him quick enough to prevent his being injured."

Vincent finally turned and glowered down at me.

I decided I was one of those who needed to come up with an excuse. "I…ahh… was busy trying to figure out how to avoid karaoke and thought I could date who I wanted."

Vincent, to show just how happy he was to see me, picked up the towel and slapped it back on my face. "Who gave you permission to think."

I went back to communing with the towel and Vincent snarled a few orders at his men to clear the bar. Actually, I was quite happy. Yes, I had a few things I needed to discuss with Vincent apparently, such as his disappearing, the whole territorial posturing, and his trying to kill me with a towel, but overall I felt idiotically better that he was there.

I must have suffered brain damage.

I should point out here that, as a dating technique, trying the old game of dating another person to get your ex jealous is not highly recommended when your ex is a Turk. Turks, almost by definition, do not get jealous. They get rid of the other person, look you over and most likely get rid of you as well for trying to make a fool of them. It is not unknown for a Turk in the middle of such a situation to wipe out entire families that Shinra has to then cover up. Now, I suppose in an effort to normalize this activity, it has been listed under "training exercises" and sub-classified as "body removal-civilian" in Shinra's operations manual. Over the years, I have had quite a few people volunteered for experimentation by Turks with broken hearts.

If I had any reason to believe, such as even a tiny note, that Vincent was even slightly interested in continuing our relationship, I would have been much more careful. Will, although no prince, was not a bad person and I had no vindictive wish to see him become a small picture in the obituary column of the Midgar Daily Press. I was mulling over how to calm Vincent down, save my drunken hide, and see if I could possibly get out of the bar without being in more pain, when I was yanked out of the booth and dragged out the door, the towel falling to the floor in our wake.

"You…" Vincent was still in all out snarl mode. "You…"

"If it helps, he was a rebound." I tried valiantly to get my feet to stop stumbling, but Vincent's legs are much longer than mine and he was using them to their full advantage.

He hissed a few unintelligible words. I don't think they were actually ever meant to be words really, just a variety of hisses to express his extreme displeasure.

I got tossed into a rather pitiful looking sports car and was promptly locked in. Turks generally drive rather ostentatious cars when they are on duty, black, sleek affairs that radiate menace. When under cover –a Turk's dream job since it got them out of their suits- they have a variety of standard issue junkers that they use to slip around unnoticed. This was one of those junked cars. While it looked like it was lucky to make it down the block without falling into a sad pile of rusted parts, it could probably break the sound barrier, four-wheel over the Western Continent's desert, and plow through the iciest of Icicle's snowstorms without so much as getting a ping in the engine.

I frowned at its peeling dashboard when Vincent came around and sat in the driver's seat. I finally had time to look at him. He was dressed in a pair of old torn jeans, a battered leather jacket, and a pair of heavy boots with, no doubt, steel toes that were ideal for kicking poor sots in bars. His hair, which he always kept neatly trimmed around his collar was now longer and shaggier than normal. His eyes looked bruised and his lips were set in a thin, pale frown. In short, he looked like both a sexy bad-ass, bad boy and like he needed to collapse into bed and sleep for a week.

He was also still hissing softly to himself. "Fucking drunk… Should have… Probably…"

While I took it as a good sign that he was now speaking semi-coherently, I was still a tad worried about being locked in a car with him. Vincent, if you haven't noticed, doesn't use profanity. This isn't a new phenomenon. Politeness is ingrained into the very fiber of his being. If I had completely failed in undoing her plans, I often think he would have gone out slaughtering the innocent and plunging the world into unbreakable darkness while politely apologizing if he accidentally bumped into someone or stepped on their foot.

"Did he fuck you?" He finally found the ability to speak in complete sentences.

"Can I get back to you on that?" I watched his hands tighten on the steering wheel knowing he was imagining them around my neck.

"Fine." He turned away and started the car.

I held on and wondered if this was the appropriate time to find Alexander or Gaia or some deity to believe in. I was now beaten, still semi-inebriated, locked in a car that was going through traffic at an unbelievable speed, with a thoroughly pissed off Turk at the wheel. I needed divine intervention. What I got was him slamming to a sudden halt outside my apartment building, slamming my already broken self abruptly into the seatbelt.

"Get out." He gleefully intoned in a voice that sped my departure from the vehicle.

I scrambled out, ignoring the shrieks of protest from my sides, head, and stomach at all the sudden action and stumbled toward my apartment building. I mistakenly thought I was now free and he would take off to go harass other poor, less battered souls. How wrong I was. As I carefully and painfully limped up the steps to my apartment, I heard his car door slam and the sound of his heavy boots stride across the walkway.

"I can't leave you for a second, can I?" He hauled me up the stairs. "I'm gone…what three whole months?.. and you're dunk, beaten, and sleeping with some blond asshole."

I would have defended Will, I don't like my lovers being called derogatory terms, but I also knew if Vincent was still cursing, I should keep my mouth shut. Besides, he had his hand in my pocket searching for my keys. Never get Vincent pissed when his hands are anywhere close to your family jewels. It's not pretty and nothing you want to experience for yourself.

"Tell me, did you fuck him here?" He apparently wasn't going to let that one go. He got the door open and shoved me in.

"No." I wobbled over to the couch, collapsing onto the cushions just as my knees gave up for the day. "If you must know it happened twice, he was lousy, and we did it in that hotel on Junon Street that has the pink roses. He didn't have any diseases and still doesn't. I checked. We also used condoms. Do you want to know the positions too?"

He glared at me and slunk around as I stretched out on the couch. The more the alcohol wore off, the more painful just breathing became. I didn't want to look, but I felt pretty sure a few ribs were broken. I only hoped that there wouldn't be any unhappy extensive internal bleeding. I unintelligently tried to find the pillow that always stayed near the couch for quick naps and jounced my abused body. Vincent paused in his slinking to look down at me as I whimpered.

"Couldn't you pick someone who'd look after you." He finally muttered then sighed (Translation: I'm disappointed in you), running an exasperated hand through his hair.

"I chose on physical appearance. He was the least like you I could find at short notice for a rebound."

How those sad words have come to haunt me.

Vincent growled slightly and went back to slinking angrily around. It seemed like old times. I had a small nostalgic moment for when I only had a concussion when Vincent last dragged me home. I carefully found my pillow and put it behind my head with infinite care, listening to him prowl around. I wasn't as worried now. His tone had gone back to normal and his language had returned to its usual polite cadence. Oh, he was still angry, and I had no illusions that what relationship we had was now over, but I didn't have to worry about being found dead in a mysterious break in.

He stopped to glare at me again. "I was only gone for three months."

"You were the one to walk away." I closed my eyes, trying to block out the sight of pain in his eyes.. Even then I hated seeing him upset. If I hadn't been so hurt, I would have reached up to comfort him. "I didn't even get a wave goodbye."

He went back to his pacing and I decided that if my body was going to insist on hurting, I was going to try to sleep through it. The only problem was finding a spot that wasn't painful and not moving. Not an easy task.

"I was busy." He commented from above me.

"A memo would have been nice." I wondered if I could pull the blanket from the end of the couch to cover myself with and not scream while doing it.

I wasn't entirely surprised when the blanket suddenly was put over me. He's always been considerate when not irate or plotting. "Not allowed."

I hadn't thought of that.

I pondered the life of a Turk while he slithered off. It was entirely possible that he'd been dragged off to an assignment as soon as we arrived back. As head of the Turks, he was probably very busy and with his extended vacation in Bone Village, he was probably swamped under with work.

I felt like the sewage we scrape out of the bio labs bi-weekly.

When I heard him come back into the room, I apologized. "Sorry. I didn't realize. I thought that once we got back, you just went back to your own life and didn't care."

"I care." He came and knelt down next to me. "Here take these."

I opened my eyes to find him holding a glass of water and some pain killers.

Can you blame me for loving him?

* * *

Thank you for the reviews! I have really enjoyed hearing from you.

Now a question, would anyone like to see Vincent and Hojo get back together as a couple? I've been contemplating a sequel to this story done in a post DOC time frame. Interested?


	7. Life and Its End

Once a Man

Chapter 7: Life and Its End

* * *

I woke up the next morning in bed with Vincent curled around me cradling my hurt body against his. The instant I tried to move, I regretted it, so I closed my eyes again and composed my call-in for work. I had just gotten to the part about being mugged –I was mostly sure Vincent would back me up- when I felt him stir behind me. Normally, I would have rolled over and checked to see if he'd be interested in a morning wake up greeting, he does love having sex in the morning, but pain and a restraining hand on my hip stopped me.

"Go back to sleep." He brushed a kiss against my temple. "No one is expecting you to be anywhere today."

Oh, yes. I had forgotten. This was Vincent that I was dealing with, not some brain dead stud with a macho complex. He probably called while I nodded off under the medication's effects.

But I wasn't the only one that needed care. I caught his hand and held it in place. "You, too. You're tired."

I got another brushed kiss, "I'll be back by noon. Now, sleep and I'll leave breakfast on the bedside table. I don't want you out of bed today."

He slipped away and I felt myself sliding back into sleep. I fought it for awhile, enjoying the little sounds that I had never really treasured until they were gone, like the sound of his showering, the small burble of the coffee maker, the muffled thud of the door as he went to get the paper and returned, and the small chiming clinks of him making breakfast.

He slipped quietly back in holding breakfast, a glass of water, and a bottle of medicine. Seeing that I was still awake, he put my meal and the glass on the night table and shook some medicine out of the bottle.

"Here take these." He carefully helped me sit up. "Take them every six hours."

I took the medicine and swallowed most of the water. Contrary to popular opinion, I do not consider myself a know-it-all. I am good at bio-chemistry. Other things, like engineering, psychology, and first aid are really beyond me. Mind you, when dealing with Vincent after what she did, I took a crash course in medicine, advanced human physiology, demonology, and a few other sciences, but I still generally bow to the experts in fields where I have limited experience- that is after all what a staff and research assistants are for. Vincent, being a Turk, had a lot of experience with aftermaths of bar fights and field triage, so if he said stay home, stay in bed, and take medicine, I wasn't going to argue.

He tucked me back under the covers and left. I managed to stay awake long enough to hear the door close behind him and the receding sounds of him walking down the stairs. I vaguely remember getting up to visit the bathroom and taking a good look at myself in the mirror. I had a few problems focusing my eyes –I think that was when I finally bowed to the inevitable and decided to get glasses- and even focused, I couldn't recognize myself. My face was swollen, bruised and had scrapes and cuts littered about its planes. My body, when I bravely lifted the tee-shirt Vincent must had maneuvered me into yesterday while I was out cold, I looked like an abstract artist had painted all over me in blues, purples, reds, and pinks. I quickly put the shirt back down, did what I came to do, and retreated carefully to bed.

Vincent, good attentions aside, didn't reappear till after dusk. I woke when I heard the door close quietly behind him. This really wasn't a slip up on his part. I learned later, he can, when needed, enter and exit any place without all the sound of a shadow passing over a calm lake. However, when coming in or exiting our apartment, he always let the door close with a small sound to alert me that he was home.

When we lived together, I always met that sound by calling out a greeting. He liked that. Apparently Grimiore hadn't allowed unnecessary noise at home, claiming that it interrupted his work, so having someone call out a welcome home, was completely forbidden. Silence was the rule of the day and even though Vincent's mother had tried to make it better by kisses and hugs, the distinct lack of welcome had its effect. When I absently yelled out a welcome the first time he walked in our apartment, he stood smiling a silly smile in the entry for a minute then came over to express his enthusiastic approval. From then on, if I was home, I made sure he got at the very minimum a hi.

He dragged himself in and looked me over as I sleepily blinked at him. "Better."

Liar. I looked like hell, but then again, so did he. The bruised look to his eyes had only gotten worse, he was even paler, and he was slumping. Vincent slumping is a dead giveaway that he was near to complete collapse.

I patted the bed next to me. "Get some sleep. You're tired."

He shook his head. "Dinner."

The second giveaway that he's about as exhausted as he can get is when he talks in one word phrases. Yes, he's quiet, but he's also articulate. Even for him, one word at a time is a bit too quiet. I've only seen him that tired a few times, mainly when he'd been out on an assignment that was too dangerous for him to even trust his partner to adequately protect him while he slept, so they both huddled together in whatever slummy tenement Shinra had them lodged in, and kept vigil with drawn weapons and pots of coffee.

I patted the bed again. "Come on. There's food in the freezer. I feel good enough to put things into the microwave."

Yes, heathens, we stone-age people had microwaves back then. Mind you they were large, clunky affairs, but they were microwaves. When I got hired at Shinra, I bought myself one in a giddy celebration of having enough money to buy such small luxuries.

He didn't argue, probably because he was too tired to argue, came over and collapsed on the bed. He was instantly asleep. I shuffled to my feet and carefully pulled off his shoes then covered him with the blankets. I figured I'd try to wiggle him out of his clothes later after I got dinner heated up and had to wake him so he could eat. To my too critical eyes, I thought he looked a bit too thin, but then he always looks too thin to me. I spent copious amounts of time trying to put weight on him to no avail. I even nagged a nutritionist into giving me a diet for him once. Vincent hated the food and even threatened to shoot me when I presented him with a professionally recommended, nutritionally sound meal. I had to toss it out and heat up my mother's beef and vegetable chow mien, pork dim sum, and hot and sour soup before he put away the weaponry. He's thin and he's going to remain that way.

I managed to get out to the kitchen without any painful mishaps and had our dinner spinning around in the microwave. I noticed that he'd dropped what looked like a small arsenal near the door and stood trying to decide if I should even touch it. I knew guns, but he'd dropped a bandier of grenades in the pile. I hate grenades. I suppose I'd watched too many movies where some poor shlub got heroically blown to bits trying to save his friends from a carelessly dropped grenade. I decided to leave the stuff where it was and went back to the kitchen to find some caffeine-free tea to go with dinner.

He woke up when the tea kettle whistled, even though I snatched it off the stove in a second. He appeared in the door, slumping tiredly and now mildly mussed up. He, by the way, looks adorable when he's mildly mussed up, which I suppose is why I always loved ruffling his hair up and tugging his clothes loose.

He frowned at the small microwaved banquet. "Where?"

"My mother sends me food every week."

And thus began his love affair with my mother's cooking.

For the next week, I was excused from coming in to the office, though every night Vincent had dragged home a large section of the never ending paperwork that Shinra produced to keep my occupied. It was like I never left.

How cheerful.

I don't remember the exact time we decided that we should live together. It was more of a gradual accumulation of Vincent's things as he spent most of his time at my place. He did have a very nice apartment, provided by Shinra, but the place was a sterile nightmare of ultra-modern leather furniture, recessed lighting that managed to light nothing, glistening counters that had all the warmth of a coroner's slab, and unending vistas of white, pastel, and chrome. (I was relieved when that home fashion trend disappeared.) He preferred my place with its second hand couch that was big enough to sleep on, old TV that you had to get up to change the channel, temperamental stove, and chipped bathroom.

One morning, I went to my closet, dug through Vincent's uniforms and realized that we really needed a bigger place. I didn't even consider when he'd settled in, why his uniforms where now crowding out my clothes, how his toiletries came to be cluttered in with mine, or what his book collection was doing rubbing shoulders with mine. I just dug out my clothes, and yelled to him that we should find a larger apartment, preferably one with two closets. He wandered in from the bathroom with a toothbrush in his mouth and nodded.

"I'll get my secretary to work on it." He mumbled and went back in to rinse.

We moved in a week. The new place had the requisite two closets, a huge office where we could both have a private desk to work at, a wet bar that was nearly in constant use as friends came over to relax, and a large master bedroom that he gleefully ordered an immense bed for then bounced playfully on the edge of it till I came over to help him "break it in". It was also closer to work, so we could spend more time lazing over our morning routines, and it came with a weekly housecleaning service. This was mainly for the times when Vincent was off on assignment. He had me well trained to be cleanly by the second month of living in Bone Village, but he still had images of me living in complete squalor when he was gone. The housekeeping service relieved his anxieties that I was downing in filth and he'd come home to find me dead, done in by virulent dust bunnies.

Our lives melded together seamlessly. We both still had our previous lives and had no overly romantic notions that we couldn't be complete without the other nearly handcuffed to our sides. He, either by preference or by orders, had to spend most of his time trawling through Midgar's bars, night clubs, and pool halls. You might think that I joined him at times, but after the bar fight, he severely cut down on my public drinking. I think I scared my big, bad Turk with that stunt. I had experiments and deadlines that often required me to stay at the lab, sleeping on the decrepit vinyl sofa in my office. He'd stop by and drop off takeout food at night for us to eat together, or sometimes bring clean clothes to me in the morning after an all nighter. But generally, we lived a warm, peaceful, often busy life with friends dropping in, –Mr. Snide Laugher was actually Veld, who back then still had a soul and a personality- vacations, relatives –I was not entirely enthusiastic about Grimiore being a sort of father-in-law and he wasn't entirely thrilled by the relation either. Neither Vincent nor myself grieved very much when we were notified about his sudden passing. Grimiore only had two loves in his life: science and young, nubile women. While I was semi-interesting because I was a scientist (and eventually had to work with him on projects), Vincent barely rated more than a fatherly pat on the back before he was treated like a servant or piece of furniture. (This also should have been my first warning that she was either an accomplished liar or delusional when she tearfully claimed Grimiore's last thought was of Vincent, but I was too stupidly blind to see it.) My mother, on the other hand, was a frequent, welcome guest and Vincent delighted in going to visit her since she stuffed him full of Wutain food and cuddled him unmercifully- and we enjoyed going out on the town to the non-lowlife areas Vincent didn't visit often like the movies, nice restaurants, and coffee houses.

I suppose I could give you a sample of our day to day lives: the tiny pleasantries; the naggy little details like bills, minor illnesses, and meaningless arguments over inconsequential things; making love in the overly big bed Vincent liked to spend his days off lounging around on; and other common acts that made up our lives. The problem is that there really was no one day that stands out as special. There were holidays spent exchanging gifts and visiting relatives. There were anniversaries of dates we found special to the two of us that were celebrated with a meal out and hours of play in bed. There were bad times when Vincent didn't come home and Veld would knock on the door to bring me shaking and terrified to a hospital to hover anxiously till some doctor finally said all would be well. There were vacations to Wutai and up to Bone Village to visit the City of the Ancients. But there was no one day that stands out as more special than the rest.

We could have gone on like this forever, till one of us finally passed into the lifestream to wait for the other. I would not have minded. I had all I wanted. I don't think he would have minded either. He'd sometimes, especially after a stressful mission, daydream about retiring to less active duty as a trainer and ask if I would mind moving to Costa del Sol or Wutai. Since neither of us truly believed he'd survive that long, I'd vote for Wutai and we'd ramble on about what we'd do, what kind of house we'd live in, and whether or not my mother would live with us –He wanted her to. I didn't.

It ended quite innocently, even unnoticeably. The boys up in Bone Village finally found the rest of Jenova. That sparked off quite a bit of excitement. Gast went personally up to Bone Village to retrieve the specimen and the science department reprioritized all its projects. I barely cared. Jenova, as I said, was interesting, but I noticed more than a few worrisome effects. I figured it would be poked, experimented on, and then, like Gast's other insane ideas, shuffled into the back of the lab to gather dust. The thing that destroyed our peaceful lives was the fact that Gast decided to hire more assistants. This led to her arrival.

I was at lunch talking to one of my own assistants about an experiment that had failed. It was an anti-toxin that could be deployed like a potion, but instead of curing, it could be thrown before combat to neutralize any toxins that might be produced by the monster, a preventative cure. Unhappily, the experiments were less than promising, and Gast was making noises about cutting budgets to focus nearly all resources on Jenova. We were trying to see if there was any way to save the project when she walked up to the table an introduced herself as Gast's new assistant.

I will say here, that I was a complete fool. Even after being in Vincent's presence for so long, watching as he used his stunning looks to manipulate others, and watching others try to use the same trick with him, I still fell for her innocent seeming beauty. And she was beautiful, with her sweet angel face, soft voice, glorious hair, and luminous eyes. She nearly radiated sweetness, naïve earnestness, and delicate refinement.

"I'm sorry to interrupt." She stood at my shoulder, smiling shyly at me and my assistant. "I'm Professor Gast's new assistant, Lucrecia."

I, in an excess of good manners stumbled awkwardly to my feet. "Hello, I'm Hojo, the assistant director."

My lunch companion stumbled to his feet too. "Nabisuki, I'm one of Hojo's assistants. Pleased to meet you."

I should have killed her. I should have grabbed a knife off the table and tried to cut out her non-existent heart. What did I do? I invited her to join us.

"Please, join us." I waved to a seat. "We were just talking shop."

My assistant knew enough to keep his mouth shut about project failures in front of any of Gast's assistants. No matter how angelic they appeared, office politics were office politics and the staff was already divided into two camps, Gast's and everyone else's. When we "talked shop" around one of Gast's people, it was generally to babble Shinra friendly slogans and exclaim about Gast's greatness. To do otherwise was unlucky, as in all your funding would suddenly dry up and perhaps you'd be invited to leave Shinra-which qualified as being academically blackballed and you'd spend the rest of your miserable days as a public sanitation worker, if that.

She sat down and gave us another shy smile. "Thank you." She looked around as if slightly nervous. "I don't know anyone here yet."

"Have you had lunch?" I noticed she had nothing with her.

"Oh…yes, with Professor Gast." She looked so… harmless.

The three of us had a pleasant lunch, talking about Midgar, –Isn't it lovely! Ah, the wonders that Shinra has produced for the people!- the wonder that was Gast, –Such a brilliant, kind man!- and how to navigate around the Shinra building –Not that there is a problem! Oh, no. It's just so immense. A true testament to the greatness of Shinra!- She eventually got to the place where she wanted the conversation to be, though I didn't realize that at the time.

"I…I heard about the Turks." Her brow wrinkled briefly with worry. "Are they…dangerous?"

I laughed. "No. They're really quite friendly."

My assistant laughed too. "To him. He lives with the leader of the Turks."

She acted startled. "Oh!"

I waved it away and laughed again. "Come by and I'll introduce you to Vincent. You'll see. "

I should have killed myself before I ever let her come near him. Happily, I was spared that horror.

She looked down at her watch and jumped guiltily to her feet. "Oh, I have to go. I'll be late."

My assistant and I got politely to our feet and nodded our goodbyes as she rushed out of the room. We separated soon after and returned to our work. I didn't think much more about her for weeks. Gast and his assistants stayed in another part of the science complex, leaving me and the rest of the department relatively lunatic free. The lab became a rather busy and stressful place as more and more projects were axed for the glory of Jenova.

A few disgruntled scientists, seeing their life work fall before Gast's mania, made a small public protest, which was met in the usual Shinra style of complete and ruthless suppression. Vincent and the Turks were assigned to thinning the ranks of dissidents and I was warned quite fiercely by my lover to keep my head down, keep smiling, and suck up to whoever I needed to, to keep myself from finding myself on the wrong end of a gun.

Vincent was a stressed out mess during this time, which I think made him more vulnerable later to her conniving than he would otherwise have been. He spent his days hunting down terrified scientists that until a few days ago had casually stopped by the apartment for drinks and a few laughs. He came home every night and grabbed me into a relieved hug, as if he had spent the entire day believing he'd find me dead, another threat to Shinra's greatness eliminated in a bloody puddle on the floor. At night he would cling to me, refusing to let go until the alarm clock rang. Our lovemaking didn't seem so much about pleasing as it became a way for him to reassure himself. I think he made an inventory and with careful fingers and relieved kisses tallied that I was all there and unharmed each night.

While I will not go so far as to claim on paper that Vincent was in anyway less than loyal to Shinra during that time, I have to say that in the years that followed I did occasionally see a man or woman who looked remarkably like some of our old friends who'd been erased by the Turks, living quiet, unnoticeable lives in out of the way locations. The resemblance was truly uncanny. Well, you know what they say, someplace in the world you have a twin. Funny how all those twins lived in tiny villages where Shinra's power was the weakest and how no Turk ever seemed to notice anything suspicious. I even saw Veld nod hello to a twin of a man he had been assigned to erase without even breaking stride as he walked into the local inn for a drink. The man, in return, bowed so low his forehead nearly touched the ground.

It was not a fun time, and it finally came to an end when Shinra decided to isolate the Jenova project to a small town on the Western Continent called Nibelheim. I was more than happy when Gast informed the department of the change. I wasn't as happy when I was informed that I would be part of the research team assigned to there. While Nibelheim is rather picturesque, it wasn't what anyone would term a tourist destination. Added to that, it meant months trapped with Gast in an old mansion that the President of Shinra's grandfather bought to house –read incarcerate- his insane, first wife. I felt like all my childhood nightmares of haunted houses inhabited by crazed lunatics came true all at once. I only felt marginally better when I learned that Vincent was coming with me to head up the security.

Vincent and I packed our things –he had learned to defer to me in the area of packing. The difference in our luggage on our trip to Bone Village had impressed on him that I was the expert in that area of endeavor- and said our goodbyes to our friends with one last party then headed to the armpit that was, and is, Nibelheim.

I hate that place. Vincent hates that place. I remember the first look we had of it. We had traveled from Midgar to Junon in a helicopter then took a boat over to Costa del Sol. He managed, through a "confusion in transport arrangements" to extend our stay there for three days, before our helicopter came to drop us off just outside Nibelheim. We stood with all our luggage at our feet looking at that monstrosity of architecture with all the excitement of two men about to go to a proctologist.

"And how long do we have to be here?" I queried, vaguely wondering just who had been the insane one in the Shinra family.

"It's not certain." Vincent swallowed hard. "You'd think they'd at least keep up the landscaping."

The entire yard was dead. If you go by it today, it doesn't look terribly dissimilar to what we saw when we looked at it. If anything, the fighting, materia blasts, and other additions that Avalanche and Vincent have made probably at least make it look lived in. Too bad it still stands. The only real renovation that could improve that place is a wrecking ball.

We stood looking for a bit more.

"It haunted. I know it. It's haunted." I muttered.

"I didn't think you believed in ghosts." He didn't look terribly thrilled with my observation.

"I didn't. I just became a believer." I pick up my luggage. "If some crazy, dead woman comes creeping around our bed late at night clanking chains and oozing slime, I'm quitting and becoming an archaeologist."

"Thanks for the visual." He picked up his luggage and we trudged merrily in to meet our doom.

Gast was waiting for us in the front hall. "Well, you're here." He laughed a hearty, booming laugh. "What do you think of the place."

Vincent shrugged. "Not bad."

I took my cue from him. I was still wary after the witch hunt for traitors about saying even the most innocuous of things. "Needs a bit of cleaning."

"All taken care of, my boy. All taken care of. A cleaning crew will be out tomorrow." He threw a companionable arm around our shoulders. "Let's get you settled in."

The three of us went up the stairs as if we were the best of friends.

Gast nodded to a bedroom on the left. "That's Dr. Cresent's room. Vincent, you're going to be assigned to her for our stay here." Vincent frowned, but Gast waved it away. "I know, I know, but she's a city girl and needs a bit of hand holding. It shouldn't interfere with your real duties."

Vincent still didn't look happy, but Gast was right, once the security system was set in place, Nibelheim would be very easy for Vincent to watch over. He'd have more than enough time to babysit a frightened city girl. It sounded reasonable.

I should have been suspicious. The too warm welcome. The odd assignment. The very reasonableness of the whole thing. I should have grabbed Vincent and run out of that place as fast as I could. Instead, I shrugged and trundled down the hall to where Gast indicated our room was.

It was nice enough. No dead, crazy women floating around spreading cheer and ectoplasmic goo. There was an old bed, a battered night stand, a few lacy curtains, and a tired chair that drooped in the corner near a dented brass lamp. Vincent and I stood in the door a moment, taking in our new room.

"Lovely." Vincent pulled his luggage in and went to sit on the bed. It creaked ominously at him.

I hated to think what it would sound like at night with the two of us bouncing around on it. Half the mansion would know everything we did and the other half would have a good idea. I was too disgusted to do much more than frown at it before I walked over and dropped my things in front of the closet.

"I hate to think what the lab is like." I muttered glaring at the rat chewed carpet under my feet. "I can already tell this is going to be a nightmare."

How right I was.

Little did I know the nightmare had already begun.

* * *

Review please.

AN: I just watched my first episode of Deathnote, and am I insane or is there a young Vincent like guy roving around as part of the investigative team? Oooooh, the crossover ideas that sparks!


	8. Nightmare

AN: I've been working on this a lot since I'm on vacation right now, so enjoy the frequent updates. It won't last long. I've also begun work on the sequel to this, "Now a Monster." Cheers to everyone for the New Year!

**Once a Man**

**Chapter 8: Nightmare**

* * *

I want to apologize if any of the following sections make little sense. It isn't entirely my fault. You see, this is where my mind started breaking down. While I figured much of it out over the years, parts are still hazy to me. I am sure that most of this is her doing, but I am not foolish enough to not take into account that my own mind shies from this, blurring things, making me forget the parts that hurt me the most.

But, I fear, you will see…

The Jenova project was not an unending stream of excitement. At first, it was dull. The whole project seemed to be nothing but looking at microscopes (not through them, at them) and watching dust settle on the equipment. I spent hours of time swilling down poorly made coffee and watching the expensive equipment glitter in the high tech lighting of the lab. Little did I suspect that equipment was really meant to house me and Vincent, or that Gast and the beautiful Dr. Crescent were smiling placidly watching me gulp down that horrid coffee, waiting for the small additions they'd so lovingly spiked it with to take effect. Neither did I know that a variation of those additions was going into Vincent's coffee on a regular basis with even more additional spices to make his day cheerier.

Oh, all the normal things were going on. The cleaning crew finally chased some of the gloom out of our domicile. Vincent's new hobby of tending to the landscaping was quickly making the outside look pleasant enough. Vincent and I spent a happy afternoon taking our bed apart and methodically fixing each squeaky spring then thoroughly testing it to see if it made any sounds.

It all just seemed so pointless, dull.

Then, Vincent began acting odd. One moment he was just the same as always, my loving companion and best friend, then, out of nowhere, he would look dreamily away, lost in some other place. If roused, he'd blindly smile and reminisce about something Lucrecia had done.

"We were walking out in the fields and she smiled at me." He'd look dreamily away. "She has the most beautiful smile in the world."

I sat, confused and a bit hurt, as he rambled on about how sweet she was, about picnics under apple trees with the flowers blooming above them, about walking with her in town with her smiling at the children, or a thousand other little instances of the wonder of her presence.

Looking back, I realize that two things were obvious at that point that I was too muddled to see. First, Vincent, while loving nature, did not just fall asleep under random trees, especially, not where Nibel wolves could make puppy chow of him. Every Turk instinct in his body would have insisted that he remain awake, and, if he was that tired, to get to a safe location to rest. Second, I was not a door mat. Yet there I was letting Vincent figuratively wipe his feet on my ego and passively letting him not only continue on with Lucrecia, but listen to him talk about falling in love with her as if this was all perfectly natural then shrug it off and bounce around on the bed with him that night.

As time passed, Vincent and Lucrecia became even more intimate. I became even more confused as each day brought more delightful surprises of Vincent and Lucrecia kissing in the now lush gardens; of Vincent not coming to bed, and, when I got worried and looked for him, found his voice, raw and panting, coming from her room; of the two of them standing together talking, smiling at each other, and exchanging small, loving touches. I was abandoned altogether by my lover, as if the years between us meant nothing. In helpless, bewildered despair, I fell back into my old past time of visiting the local bars.

Gast didn't mind. He spent most of his days staring at Jenova or puttering around the lab. When I did appear, hung over and feeling like hell, he'd just sigh and wave me away.

"Nothing yet, my boy, nothing yet. Go enjoy the day. We'll be busy enough soon." He'd laugh with a jovial, booming sound.

Poor, lost, drunk that I was, I would just nod and stumble out, desperately hoping I wouldn't be treated to a sideshow of Vincent and Lucrecia snuggling lovingly with each other as I made my daily trek to the bar.

My health deteriorated rapidly. I blamed the drinking at the time. I had headaches, my stomach wouldn't accept solid food, and I lost track of time. Sleep became a tortuous, lonely affair filled with looming monsters that sometimes began visiting me even while awake. My nerves became so brittle and over sensitive that even walking through the mansion's dimly lit halls and then stepping into the rare bright spots of light would trigger a migraine. The slightest of sounds grated down my nerves like shards of glass. I broke out in painful rashes. My muscles continually ached and would often spasm uncontrollably. My joints creaked and moaned at me as if I was an old, old man. I lost weight till my clothes hung off my body like they would off clothes hangers.

Vincent, who at one point would have been alarmed at this, just turned his back and returned to the wonder that was her. He now slept in a separate room, across from hers and spent most of his days (and nights) keeping her company. His other duties were forgotten. Not even the arrival of soldiers to take over his job aroused in him the notion that he was derelict in his performance as the head of security.

Looking back, I can see that quite simply, I was dying, slowly and painfully, and Vincent was too far gone in whatever drugged fog she had us in to notice. We, who at one time would have defended the other to the death, now barely recognized each other as we stumbled past in the halls.

Then one day, in the middle of my suffering, a ministering angel appeared to me to whisper all the loving things that I had so desperately missed. She would find me in my agony and lead me to a place where I could rest. Her soft hands soothed my pain. Her voice led me back from the delirium that had overtaken me. She was my savior, and it seemed in only a matter of weeks, she was my dearest love.

You guessed it, Lucrecia.

Vincent? All of a sudden, I couldn't even remember who he was, he was my rival and that was all. He, unworthy, stupid, uncouth boy that he was, wanted to take my angel away from me. I hated him for that. Couldn't he see that he wasn't worthy of her? Couldn't he see that she was as far above him as the stars from the earth?

Couldn't I notice that I was delusional?

Apparently the answer to all those was no. No more than I noticed that Vincent was delusional, or that it was strange that suddenly Gast, in his infinite wisdom had decided that I needed to give blood samples every three days and "vitamin" shots every day to "help you recover from that nasty flu you seem to have caught." Vincent also had to have his shots and tests too, to make sure he didn't contract my disease.

I recovered, thanks to my angel. In my gratitude, I showered her with gifts. I arranged elegant dinners at the Inn and strolls to see the sunset on the mountains. I laughed with her as we danced in local celebrations. Each morning I got out of bed, rejoicing in my health (which was still pitiful, but I didn't mind), and raced down to breakfast to bask in her kindness.

The fact that she tossed Vincent aside like a piece of garbage was easily brushed aside. He wasn't fit to touch her shoes to clean them. Her previous infatuation was brushed away as no more than a young, innocent being attracted to a sly, good looking piece of shit. She'd realized the error of her actions and had come to me. She even confessed as much to me.

I remember, I was walking back from town, feeling rather sad, lonely and confused, as if I had lost something of great value and didn't know what it was. I had seen her and Vincent together down in one of the labs, arguing, and blamed my mood on the fact that my angel was still talking to that low life. I was crushed, remembering vaguely the sounds of them having sex, and despaired that my angel was sullying herself with that toad. I had just reached the outside fence to the estate and was contemplating walking a bit farther. I didn't want to go back inside if all I would encounter was that dimwitted Turk putting his dirty hands on my sweet darling.

When I stepped past the gate, I heard her voice calling to me. "Doctor! Wait, please wait."

Of course I would wait. For her, I would have tried to stop the rotation of the planet. I turned and smiled at her, my heart lifting at the sight of her walking towards me.

She came to stand in front of me, smiling shyly. "I just… I…was wondering."

"Yes," I stepped closer, exalting in her presence. She was so lovely standing there in the breeze with her hair twining around her delicate features.

"Well, we…uhm…" she blushed. "I was wondering if…" She looked up at me, like a doe finding courage to face a great peril. "…you'd spend the night with me." She looked away then shook her head. "I'm sorry. I'm being to forward, but…"

"I thought you were dating that Turk…Vincent." I stepped away slightly, hurting.

"Oh, I was just…confused." She bit her lip, looking tearful. "He's so hansom and charming. I guess I made a fool of myself."

"So you've come to your senses and chosen me?" I couldn't believe my luck. After months (actually about a week but I was too drugged to accurately keep track of time) of suffering with the fact that my angel was defiling herself with that pig, I was suddenly granted access to heaven.

"Yes, Doctor." She smiled shyly up at me then reached up to pull me into a hug.

I was in ecstasy. I gloried in the feeling of my angel's body pressed close to mine. We joyfully went back to her room, the same one that Vincent so long ago (a few days ago in real, undrugged time) made love to her, and…

I'll skip the next part thank you. It isn't that I can't remember, but remembering what it was like to be intimate with her still makes me rather ill.

Time passed in a haze of lovely moments, and it seemed that in only a matter of weeks (actually two days by my not so accurate reckoning) we were standing outside the small chapel on the outskirts of Nibelheim kissing and newly wed. Gast, who had in our time at the mansion had transformed into a fatherly, caring gentleman, toasted us as the locals laughed and showered us with confetti. My angel, dressed in white, with flower blossoms in her hair, looked radiant. My only dark cloud was the sulking, dolt of a Turk that lurked in the background.

I felt as if my life couldn't get any more perfect. My angel and I were always together. We exchanged small smiles, giggled like children if our hands brushed together, and we were always catching each other's gaze. Nights…well, I am disgusted to say I enjoyed them.

The Jenova project was going well. We suddenly had lots of data to work with. I never questioned where this raw data came from. I never suspected a thing. I was just pleased that my angel, my dear friend, Gast, and I were finally working together on a project that was sure to make the world a better place. We spent hours in the lab, lost in the world of science.

The only thing that could have made my life even more perfect occurred a few months (about five days) later when my sweet angel shyly told me that she was pregnant. I was so happy I was literally stunned. I was going to be a father! My angel, my sweet, perfect angel was going to be a mother. Our child, ours, was growing in her and one day, I would see physical proof of our love. I cried with joy, never suspecting anything was wrong with what I was being told.

A few weeks later (probably the next day, but I'm not sure of this), we were in bed and I was lying so that my ear was against her belly. I knew that I couldn't hear my child, but I wanted to feel close to that tiny life. I loved my child and wanted to be near it.

"Hojo, I was thinking." My angel was lovingly stroking my hair. "About Jenova."

"Hmmm?" I kissed her still flat stomach, hoping that my child would feel my love even if he or she couldn't yet feel my kiss. "What about her."

"The findings so far have been spectacular, don't you agree." Her voice was soft and dreamy. "No bad side effects at all."

If I had been at all sane, I would have violently disagreed with her. All the findings so far proved Jenova to be a time bomb just waiting to go off, and the only spectacular thing was our complete stupidity for not devoting our time to disposing of the monster. Jenova was, to be frank, an abomination. Only a complete moron, a wacko, or someone under Jenova's influence could look at that freak of nature and think "Oh, so this is an Ancient."Unfortunately, I was well into wacko territory at the time.

"Yes, none at all." I lifted my head to look questioningly at her. "Why?"

"I was thinking," she stroked her fingers down my face, "why not give our child every blessing that we can?"

Even insane, I felt a twinge of alarm. "What do you mean?"

"Jenova." She brushed her fingers through my hair. "Why not give our child Jenova treatments and give our darling the best start possible?"

I shook my head, "I don't know…"

"Let's talk to Professor Gast tomorrow. Get another opinion." She pulled me up to kiss her. "I only want what's best for our little one."

The next day, after my continuing treatment for that horrible virus (It was truly amazing how I always felt much more agreeable after my treatments), we talked to Gast. He made a few fatherly noises, but reluctantly agreed that it was a good idea. My reservations evaporated, and we shifted our research to using Jenova to enhance my child's future. It was amazing, truly amazing, how effortlessly we managed to change course and how Shinra just okayed the project without the batting of an accountant's eye. All the data on using Jenova on human subjects was already there and we had nothing more to do than to put it to use on helping my unborn son or daughter become the best he or she could hope to be.

I never questioned the data. I never connected the symptoms of Jenova exposure with the "flu" I had experienced. I didn't think, even for a second, about how strange it was that the data was so up to date, or that all the shiny, unused equipment was so perfect for what we were attempting. I never worried that never, ever had I seen any reports on human experimentation slide across my desk while back in Midgar. I just accepted what I was given, happy to be working with my angel and my best friend to create a better future.

Vincent was the only one to buck at the reins. He questioned Lucrecia. I even overheard them arguing about it, but since my angel put him firmly in his place, I just smiled and walked past, happy that she had gotten over her infatuation with that immature imbecile. He didn't give up though. He kept worrying at it. Even after Lucrecia and I both told him that we knew what we were doing and that this is what she really wanted, he kept nipping at it, gnawing at it like the stubborn Turk that I had first fallen in love with.

In the end, it was his insistence that something was wrong that finally alerted me to the fact that something was most definitely wrong. I just didn't know what was wrong. I was too far under their control to look to them as the source for this wrongness. Instead, I looked at Vincent.

Something about the man tugged at me. He irritated me. He infuriated me at times. I hated him, yet, at the same time, I was always aware of him. I could identify his footsteps even in a crowd. When he walked past me, I would recognize the scent of his skin and if he smelled even slightly different. I could spot him just by the way he moved even at a distance. It drove me mad. Or more accurately, sane.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I started to remember. It was small things at first like how he would slightly bite his bottom lip when deep in thought. One day, he sighed and I translated it without thinking. I started to look at calendars trying to reconcile my memories to the date then getting confused when they didn't match up. I watched Lucrecia, worrying when I couldn't remember why I married her, or even why I thought she was special. I chaffed when I realized that the soldiers stationed around the mansion weren't Turks, feeling as if their presence was a glaring warning that something was horribly wrong. Lucrecia, who by my confused time reckoning should have been in her third trimester, was still slim with only a slight bump to show her condition.

Gast, claiming that he was starting to worry that I was relapsing, increased my medication. The data suddenly became less clear as it showed that Jenova could be rejected by the recipient organism. Our research began to lose focus and everything began to unravel. I became sick again and Gast clucked about being right about a relapse. The world became confused, but I had sunk my teeth in to the idea of something being wrong and I wasn't letting go. Vincent had taught me far too well.

Time swayed dizzily around. I was back again in Bone Village jogging with Vincent up the path towards the cavern to the Sleeping Forest. I was back in Wutai, weeping silently as soldiers paraded past our tiny house and my mother held me as we huddled on the floor. I was in Midgar sprawled on the couch in Vincent's arms watching a movie. I was running for my life from a huge hungry lizard while Tewits fluttered in the distance. I was walking down the school corridor, worrying about my test results.

I jolted back to the present one day when my door slammed open and Vincent stood there snarling at me. Only it wasn't Vincent. Vincent had beautiful light brown eyes. Vincent had golden cream skin. This was not Vincent. This thing that was pretending to be him had gleaming yellow eyes and grey skin. Long, jagged teeth were sliding down over his lower lip. I was frozen as he started yelling, demanding something from me. His voice was too loud, his face too angry. I was lost in between the confusing now and all those thens that had been racing through my fevered mind.

"Talk! Why did you let this happen!?"

_Let what happen? What? Just be quiet. Let me think._ "Silence!"

My head hurt, but as I looked at him, I remembered. _Vincent?_

If anything his appearance had gotten worse. His hair was spiking upwards into red, jagged peaks. Talons were growing from his hands. I got frightened, and, half sane as I was, I did what Vincent had taught me to do so long ago. I used the gun he had given me on our first anniversary and shot him.

"Silence!"

The shot echoed around in my head, clashing with the sound of Vincent's snarling voice, Gast's fatherly, booming laugh, and Lucrecia sweetly calling my name. I needed to focus. I needed to think. Something, something dreadful had just happened, but my confused brain was spinning.

"Why can't these people just keep quiet!"

And then they were. I was standing over Vincent with a gun in my hands watching him die.

"Vincent?" I could barely breathe. I felt like someone was crushing my chest.

He looked up at me, already losing consciousness, but his eyes still glowed golden, his skin still grey, and his teeth long and animalistic.

"What have they done? What have I done?" I shook my head, thinking of the strange data. _Oh sweet Planet, Vincent_. "No. No. I can… I can still save you. That body of research…all that data…we were… their next experiment. I…I'm such a fool. Gast, he thinks he's a genius. I am sorry. I'm sorry. I know we much success here. I can't think straight. How can they even try to justify this as science. I was so wrong. All my failures… I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

I don't know how long I stood there babbling, but Lucrecia ran in and looked at him laying there bleeding on the floor, "Hojo, what have you done."

I should have turned the gun on her. I should have killed her for what she'd done.

Even then, dying from her manipulations, he reached out for her. "Lucrecia."

I screamed. I kept screaming as soldiers came in and pinned me to the ground, wrestling the gun from my frozen grip. I screamed when Gast came in and ordered Vincent's body to be taken down stairs to the labs. I screamed when she coolly turned her back and walked away from me without another glance. I kept screaming when I was put in a cell. I screamed till my voice broke and my mind with it.


	9. Revenge

* * *

Once a Man

Chapter 9: Revenge

* * *

If you were to ask Vincent, what is the most horrible thing about you. He would say that he is a monster, a beast in human form. He'd probably go on to seriously explain to you how turning into a demon is his punishment for his sins.

At this point, I would like to point out one very pertinent fact. I wasn't the one who infected him with the Chaos gene. I was only the poor ass who tried to free Vincent from that gene. She is the one that did that to him. She is the one who made him a monster.

Oh, I've heard the melodramatic wailing, especially from the brat ninja, about how Lucrecia sacrificed herself for Vincent. Chocoboshit. Any sacrifice she made was for her benefit. She needed, and needs, Vincent alive and in control of Chaos, just as she needed Sephiroth alive and in control of Jenova, and me, I believe, alive and in control of Omega. Anything less and her plans are destroyed. While I grieve for my son, I am, at the same time, relieved that he is finally free now from her scheme. I still worry for Vincent, but she has made sure that I will never be able to help him again. For myself, I couldn't care less if I get turned into a demon or not. It makes little difference to me. Monster, demon what do I care? I only hope to never bow to her wishes.

Oh, her plan?

That really is rather simple. She is going to control the planet. I mean that in the most complete sense. With her controlling the hosts of Chaos, Jenova, and Omega, she will be able to become a goddess with ultimate control of life and death. If you are snorting and saying how the hell did she expect to gain control over the hosts, should I point out just how much control she has (and still has) over Vincent? Once, she had the same amount of control over me. I am sure, if I had left Sephiroth in the loving care of his mother, she would have had him slavishly adoring her as well.

You still don't believe me, do you?

Then look at the security footage from the labs. It's been a bit altered, I'm not sure who did the altering and I've been curious about that for years, but the evidence is still there. All you have to do is look at Vincent floating in the mako tank as his beloved, self-sacrificing Lucrecia tries to save him from my foul deeds. Take note, he is still wearing his uniform and it looks relatively clean and in one piece. If you look close enough, you can even see the bullet hole from where I shot him. Even his hair is short and neatly trimmed. Do you think that if I was going to torture him unmercifully, perform unspeakable acts of cruelty, and hack apart his body, that I would, at the end of the day, redress him in his uniform? Maybe have his uniform cleaned and pressed for him? Do you think I would hire a barber to come in and keep him well coifed?

Actually, I will admit, I would. Vincent, with his hatred of being dirty, would have been miserable being dressed in months old, unwashed clothes and knowing that I could spare him such an easily fixed annoyance, I would have done it. When he did finally get turned over to my care, I took the uniform away and put him in clothes that weren't so complicated to take off him to keep clean. I disposed of the uniform. He may not care too much about tattered clothes, but having a hole through the front and back of his uniform would have bothered him. The clothes he wears now are actually some of his father's. I found them when I went through Grimiore's things trying to research what she'd done. When I finally realized I could do nothing more to help him, I didn't want to put him to sleep in a flimsy hospital gown and since he and his father were the same size, I put him in those. (I could practically hear Vincent's snarls of fury if he woke up with his back end feeling breezy. –And wouldn't that have impressed the failure and his dimwitted crew?)

The reason that Vincent is still in his uniform in those videos is because she and Gast dumped Vincent into that tank and never bothered to take the uniform off of him. He was just a specimen in a bottle as they did whatever they wanted with him. His comfort or well being were never issues with them.

I, on the other hand (and yes, this is checkable and in Shinra's records) was shuffled away, back to Midgar. The official reason was that I had come down with a viral infection resulting in fevers, delusion, and irrational behavior. I was shuffled off to a hospital and "treated" for my condition. That was Gast's mistake. He believed that I was broken and no threat to him. I was stupid Hojo, the failed experiment, whose body rejected the Jenova treatments and was now too sick and too mentally crippled to do much more than curl in a corner and drool on himself.

Vincent was written off by Shinra. The official report states merely that he died while on assignment to Nibelheim. That was Gast's second mistake. If he had tried, even half heartedly, to make someone believe that I had been the cause of Vincent's death, I would never have been able to do what I did. After all, there is a world of difference between being delirious because of a bad viral infection and being murderously insane. Instead, in his blind, careless arrogance, he brushed it aside, and me with it.

I stayed in that hospital, raving for awhile, then someplace in my head things started to click back together. I'm not saying I became saner. I just became more functional. I started realizing that I had to do something to save my son or daughter from whatever Gast and Lucrecia's plans were, and to do that, I needed to play their game. Vincent had taught me to be a great game player. If you ever need to learn about deceit, ask for a Turk to give you pointers.

I became docile. I greeted the nurse with tired smiles and half feeble assurances about feeling a bit better than the day before. When someone gave me medicine, instead of fighting like a wild animal, I would calmly take it and ask a few questions about dosage, effects, and drug interactions. As my physical condition improved, I volunteered to help out doing small jobs around the ward. I helped where I could, smiled pleasantly at people, looked lost when asked questions about Nibelheim, and became the friendliest, easiest to care for patient in the hospital. I quickly became the hospital's darling and a few weeks later I was released back to work, with many nurses, orderlies, and helpers waving me goodbye and wishing me the best.

I waved back, and then turned my attentions immediately to my next goal. Destroying Gast. It was the only way. I wanted him to suffer. I wanted him on his knees, helpless and at my mercy. I needed to destroy Gast's backing so that when I got back to Nibelheim I could move to save my unborn child and get revenge for my lover.

I would claim that I wanted to save Vincent too, but at that time, I truly thought he was dead. I wanted revenge for him. I wanted to know just what they had done to both of us. But I didn't believe he was still alive. My goal was my defenseless child, or, more accurately Vincent's defenseless child. I had checked the calendar and the records and realized that only a few months had passed. With a quick calculation of dates and even a basic knowledge of the human reproductive cycle, I knew that the child that Lucrecia carried was not mine. It didn't matter to me whose child it was. Vincent had been the center of my world and if the only thing I had left of him was his child, I would fight for it. That child was ours and nothing short of, and as it turned out including, the end of the world was going to stop me from doing everything in my power to protect it.

The opening move of my war against Gast was simply to go back to work. I shuffled in, looking as sick and weak as I could. As my co-workers came by to offer condolences for Vincent's death and concerned questions about my obvious bad health, I smiled bravely and thanked them as I wiped tears from my eyes. My official story was that I had been too sick to even realize he was gone till I woke up in the hospital in Midgar. About the Jenova project, I was just as confused. I settled at my desk, requested my secretary to bring me glasses of water on a regular basis, and devotedly did my paperwork. I became the model Shinra scientist: dedicated, loyal, and determined to discover a way to make Shinra great.

The Turks came down and questioned me more closely about Vincent's passing. I felt for them. They had been our friends and many of them were truly grieved by his loss, but I was not going to endanger our child by sentimentally confiding in these people. Turks are Turks and they are not to be trusted. Their first loyalty is always to Shinra and seeing the amount of capital and security that Shinra devoted to the Jenova project, saying anything suspicious might have earned me a bullet in the head and the baby would have been left to Lucrecia and Gast's mercy.

I stuck to my story and, as far as I could trust them, grieved with them. Eventually, I became old news and life went back to as normal as it could ever be without Vincent. I was just another cog in the great machine that was Shinra. I did my work and only rarely stumbled back to my now lonely apartment. If questioned about why I spent so many nights at the lab, it was easily explained by me taking a deep, steadying breath and saying how I hated going home. Sympathetic souls gushed comfort at me then left me alone in the lab to work off my grief.

Being insane does have its advantages, and apparently once your mind slips its gears, believably acting various parts becomes quite simple.

What I was really working on was diagnosing what Vincent and I had been given that made us so easy to manipulate. By the time I got free of the hospital, most of the chemical traces had been eliminated from my body. I could still spot the Jenova, even though it was dying, but the mind altering chemicals were trickier. I spent nights considering the trace elements in my blood, hair, and skin, and tracking down texts on chemicals. I used Vincent's passcodes to get access to the Turk's extensive files on drugs. It took weeks of nearly sleepless nights, but in the end, I found it. It was a derivative of a hallucinogenic that Gast had developed a few years back for controlling people in key positions in other rival companies. It was powerful, effective, and as long as the person took it they would remain under the control of their handler. It only needed to be activated with a manipulate materia and the person became your adoring slave.

You might wonder why I was so bent on this. It's very simple. Do unto others as they have done unto you.

I should have that framed and put on the wall.

As soon as I had this drug identified, I put the second part of my plan into play. Gast had the power he did because he was friends with the president of the company. I, in the guise of being the acting head of the science department while Gast was away, started becoming the president's new best friend. This was a disgusting process. The man was a sink of bad manners, poor hygiene, and absent morals. I spent more time in whore houses than I spent at the lab or at home. I trailed faithfully after him to poorly lit bars to gamble, to back alley dog fights, and to cheap hotel rooms where we would spend time using whatever poor, unfortunate creature had been selling themselves on the street corner when we drove by. At work, I laughed at sick, perverted jokes, snickered with him about sadistically pointless cruelties that he inflicted on his staff, and jeered with him at the ineptitude of humanity in general.

It took awhile to gain the trust of the Turks that guarded him. Even if I was Vincent's grieving lover, when it came to the president's safety, they trusted no one easily. Eventually, I won my game by simply infecting the president with a virus (I loved the symmetry of that).

It was simple enough. I chose an airborne virus and simply blew it in his face when I fake coughed into a treated tissue. The swine got sick two days later and was pleading for medication to make him feel better. His physician, like any other professional, advised bed rest and fluids. When he told me this, I shook my head and mentioned new breakthroughs we'd developed due to my new found (and completely fictional) hatred of all things flu like. As his friend, it was my duty to help him. I gave him an anti-viral medication and some "vitamins" (How I adored the irony.) He felt better quickly and citing my recent bad experience with viruses, recommended that he continue with the vitamins. I gleefully extolled the virtues of a good vitamin routine to keep one healthy and at peak condition.

It worked beautifully. In a matter of months from leaving Nibelheim, I was the president's best friend, and more importantly, his master. I ran Shinra. It was lovely to stand behind that fat fool and realize that even the tiniest of my whims would be his greatest desire. I had no tiny whims though. I had revenge. I was not going to let Gast and Lucrecia get away with what they had done and what they were doing. The child was depending on me, and I was not going to fail Vincent again.

Gast was the first to feel the weight of my new power. All I did was walk into the president's office and sit down with a worried look on my face. The president instantly dropped whatever he was doing and gave me his complete attention.

"You look troubled, my friend." He looked so earnest.

I nodded and handed him a stack of paperwork. "I haven't wanted to trouble you." I sighed worriedly, "But things are starting to get… worrisome."

If it helps, my drugging the president did have a few beneficial side effects. He actually started to pay attention to his company rather than his penis. He even gave up some of his more disgusting habits like trawling the streets for hookers. Rufus can thank me for being born. If I hadn't gotten disgusted by my nightly wallow in the cesspool of the red light district, his mother would have remained a frigid virgin whose husband couldn't be bothered to even perform his marriage duties. He can also thank me for his ass staying intact. His dear old dad wasn't above fucking his own son. I never liked pedophilia (After seeing so many perverts eyeing Sephiroth, who even as a child exhibited all his father's exquisite beauty, I became a bit rabid about it), so when I noticed a little too much interest being directed at young Rufus, I whispered a few orders in my puppet's ear about leaving the boy alone. It didn't save him from feeling the effects of his father's repressed sexual drive in the form of getting beaten into the ground on a regular basis, but he didn't have the horror of having that sweaty boar violate him.

Said boar sat up alarmed. "What? What is it?"

He took the papers, looking through them. "Hojo, what is going on?"

"That's what I would like to know." I shook my head. "It seems that the Jenova project is becoming… how should I put this…less than well documented and seeing the importance of this project, I'm becoming worried."

This, while true, was really not a surprise. Gast was notorious for his lack of documentation. I just picked it up and pointed it out where it would do me the most good. If Gast hadn't been such a careless fool, my vengeance would have been much more difficult.

The president frowned at the reports. "This isn't good, my friend."

I had doctored some of the reports. I had become quite an expert at that necessary skill as I usually had to forge Gast's signature, do his paperwork, and generally pretend to be him in the files of Shinra since he was far too important to be bothered with such trivialities. I put his laziness to good use now, making it seem the dear professor had become senile and forgetful. Most of his submitted reports, and there were few, now were rambling, vague, and completely off the subject. I even added a long dissertation about rose fertilizer. Vincent, my devious, botanist Turk, would have been so proud.

"I fear that Gast…well the strain must be getting to him." I shook my head sadly. "Such a genious…"

My puppet obediently took his cue and looked worried. "Jenova is an important project. If he's not able to adequately do his job…"

I sat down and nodded. "He's been under strain since that…incident with the dissidents."

"You don't think?" The fat swine turned red as visions of his beloved project became menaced by lurking shadowy figures of sticky fingered traitors.

Right then, I could have destroyed Gast. I could have had his head brought to me in a gift wrapped box. I could have had anything I wanted: his life, his job, his balls lightly sautéed in butter... I wanted him to suffer. Dead people don't suffer, that privilege is reserved only for the living.

"I doubt it." My broken brain had a thought. "But what do we know about his assistant? I was very sick, but I remember there were a lot of strange people…"

The president sometimes surprised me. Honest, it amazed me how his piggy little brain could twist things around.

"Your sickness… She made you sick and Gast, poor old fellow, probably dotes on her…he does fall for the beauties… and can't see anything wrong." He blinked startled. (I admit I was startled too, that his brain was actually coming up with something close to the truth.) "My Turk! He must have found out and she killed him!"

I nodded my head, and made sure the Turk heard me. "That may very well be why my Vincent died. He probably found out what was going on and had to be silenced."

The president sat back appalled. In just a few moments and with a handful of papers, I had exposed a probable traitor who now was in the heart of one of Shinra's most cherished projects and she was connected the death of the Turk Leader. The president believed every word (after all he came up with most of them himself) and, just as importantly, the Turks now had someone to vent their frustrations and grief on.

"That traitor!" The president sprang to his feet, slamming his pudgy hand down on the desk.

I kept my mouth shut, but nodded solemnly.

He yelled at the Turk by the door. "Go get Veld! I want Veld now!"

The Turk scrambled out. I let my puppet froth at the mouth for awhile. He was quite good at frothing. He cursed Lucrecia. He came up with all sorts of vile things to do to her when he got his hands on her. –I should have taken notes. They were quite creative.- He even swore revenge for his loyal, murdered Turk, who by the time Veld got to the office, had been propelled up to the ranks of sainted martyrs. (By the way, if you were to dig through the ruins of the old Shinra tower, you'd find a small plaque that used to be in the lobby with Vincent's name on it extolling him as one of the best Turks in the history of the organization. I used to stop by it every night to touch it.) I quietly added a few suggestions, which in his drugged state, he absorbed completely, as if he had thought of them himself.

Veld, marched in and stood stiffly waiting for orders, occasionally looking towards me as if trying to get me to tell him what the hell was going on. I just nodded back and kept my peace. The president frothed a bit more, cursing Lucrecia.

He finally turned to his Turk. "Gast. I want him back here now. He can't stay in Nibelheim a second longer! He could be in danger!"

Veld nodded, "Already in motion, sir."

"I want a complete inquiry into the Jenova project." The president snarled. "Professor Hojo will be taking over and I want him to have a clean staff. No traitors!"

Ah well, there went my time in my cozy lab concocting mind controlling drugs, but at least I would be seeing my child again sooner that I thought. However, the last thing our poor child needed was to suddenly have his mother's brains splattered across a floor while still in utero. I made a note to myself to intercede, temporarily, on Lucrecia's behalf.

By the time Veld left the office, Gast was going to be whisked back to Midgar and I now held his job as head of the Jenova project. I had, with my swinish little puppet backing me, all the power I needed to destroy him and Lucrecia.

"Sir, while I hate to say this," I took a dramatic sigh, "Lucrecia, while probably a traitor, probably should be kept alive. We will need her to continue the project without any serious delays… at least for a little while."

My puppet instantly agreed. "Of course. We can assign extra security on the project to keep her in line. I will have her kept in Nibelheim in custody till you arrive."

I nodded and stood up. "My friend, while I am pleased to help you in this matter, I am still sorry to have disturbed you like this." I dropped my head, wallowing in the drama of it all. "I feel I should have done more to prevent this."

"No. No." He walked over and grasped my shoulders. "I am glad you came. You may have saved the life of a good man. I only wish I had known of this before I sent you and Valentine to Nibelheim." He pulled me into a flabby hug. "I hope you forgive me for not realizing what danger I sent you both into. It cost you dearly."

He really was a great puppet. I kept him on his special vitamins right up to his death and never once did he let me down. He prattled the most amazingly helpful things, kept me safe from my enemies, could always be counted on for a quick ego boost, and did it all with a huge smile on his piggy, fat face.

I hated the man.

I was back in Nibelheim two days later with an escort of thoroughly pissed off Turks, a squadron of soldiers who had shoot to kill orders targeting any suspected traitors, and a handpicked team of scientists.

Gast, looking angry and confused, was led to the transport and bundled off still clutching his morning coffee and donut. Lucrecia was escorted firmly to her quarters and the soldiers on duty were relieved of their posts to head back to Midgar. (The president wanted each one of them questioned for possible traitorous thoughts. Sadly, most of them were deemed traitors, and were quickly executed. Sad. Sad. I guess I should have been more specific when I whispered to my puppet to quiet everything down as quickly as possible.) I was quite pleased with how quickly Nibelheim came under my control until Veld came over and pulled me away from my gloating.

"You need to see this." His voice sounded pinched and odd.

Whatever could shake Veld was sure to be something big, so I trotted quickly after him as he went down into the basement labs. He kept quiet. As we walked downwards, I noticed that many of the Turks we passed had a rather odd expression on their faces. Outrage. It isn't an expression that one normally finds a Turk wearing. They are a cynical lot and little ruffles their cold composure, but something up ahead had them all ruffled.

Curious, and getting a sick feeling of dread (I think I knew what I was going to find), I entered the lab. There was Vincent floating in a mako tube, his head falling limp, the gunshot wound in his chest still open and raw. They'd preserved him as he was the day I killed him.

Veld stood staring at this abomination with a look of total anger on his face. "What have they done?"

"I don't know." I slid to my knees, stunned. They had been using Vincent's dead body for experiments. Even then I could feel cracks shattering outward in my already broken mind. I pressed my hands against my temples trying futilely to stop the cracks from spreading. "I don't know."

Veld nodded to two Turks, "Get him out of there."

"NO! No wait." I stumbled to my feet. "Wait."

Veld glared at me. "He's not an experiment."

"I have to know what she's done." I wobbled over to stand below the platform the tank was on, looking up into Vincent's dead face. "I need to make sure she…she hasn't… hurt him."

Veld snarled, turning to one of the Turks that stood gaping nearby. "Where's the bitch?"

"She's up in her quarters." The man saluted. "I'll go get her."

I shook my head, clearing it, "Be careful with her. I don't remember much, but she's dangerous."

"She's a traitor." Veld snarled, coming to stand next to me. "Do you think she's the one…"

"Probably." I nodded. "I was out of my mind with fever most of the time, but I remember…" I shook my head trying to clear it. I had to pull myself together fast. "I remember her and Vincent arguing… fighting about something…"

Veld snorted. "Take a look at this."

He pulled out a picture. "Remember this?"

It was of me, her, and Gast on my wedding day.

I took the picture frowning at it. "Where's Vincent? Why am I…?" I pretended to be appalled and gave my voice a half hysterical pitch, which wasn't all that hard considering that I wanted to start shrieking and pounding my head on the floor. "No... I wouldn't have… Where's Vincent?" I let a few tears fall. This wasn't hard to do. Keeping them from turning into a torrent of hysterical crying, that was hard. "Why isn't Vincent…"

"Probably dead." He pointed to the picture. "You look like the walking dead in that, Hojo."

I did. I was semi-surprised I was standing. In the months that I recovered, I had forgotten just how horrid I had looked while under Lucrecia and Gast's loving care. My eyes were shrunken back into my skull-like head. My arms and legs were like twigs wrapped loosely in cloth. My hair was limp, lifeless and bedraggled. The look on my pallid, gaunt face was one of confused happiness, as if I wasn't entirely sure what I was doing or how I had gotten there but was too bewildered to question what was going on around me. I handed the picture back.

"Burn it." I whispered. "I never want to see that again."

"She's pregnant." Veld handed the picture off to be destroyed. "Congrats."

I shook my head, my voice trembled as I tried to hold myself together. It did make my performance have the right dramatic touch, I have to admit. "Don't congratulate someone who becomes a parent by being raped. It's no honor."

I walked over to the monitor then picked up a notebook. I flipped through it till I came to what I expected to find. Notes on the experiment they were doing on our child. The experiment was heading in directions I hadn't even dreamed possible. Many of the notes had references to demonology and infusing the child with tainted mako as well as Jenova.

"Even the baby." I handed the book over to Veld. "She was experimenting on the unborn child."

Veld took the book, holding it like it was a dead rat. "Are you sure you want this bitch to live?"

It was providence that Lucrecia was hustled into the room when Veld said that. She was already pale, swollen with child, and obviously sick. I had no pity. It was thanks to her that Vincent was dead, in that awful tube with a hole through his chest. If it wouldn't have endangered the child, I would have attacked her myself. I would have gutted her with my fingernails and danced on her rotten heart for what she'd caused.

"For now." I shook my head. "Once the child is born, she's expendable."

Poor, sweet Lucrecia didn't look happy about that. Considering just how far along she was, she only had a few more weeks to live, if that. How I gloried in that appalled look. How I looked forward to seeing her face as she died in a hail of bullets.

"Hojo, my love, what are you saying?" She tried to rush to me.

The Turks wouldn't let her. She struggled against them, weak and crying.

"Hojo! Please!" She wept. "My love..."

I turned away from her, looking up at Vincent. "I don't love you."

"Hojo, how can you say that? Darling, I know you were sick, but it's me. Your wife. Lucrecia." She begged for my attention.

I looked back at her. "Tell me, did you really think I would forget him?" I gestured to where Vincent floated suspended above us in his mako tomb.

"You…you said you loved me." She sobbed. I have to give her credit, she's a fine actress. "You said he meant nothing to you."

"He was my life." I looked back up at him. "Now that he's gone… I have nothing."

Melodrama, ah, how I love it. Unhappily, in this case, it was also the truth, or very close to it. Until our child was born, I had nothing. Only when I had our child safe, then my life would begin again.

"YOU! You were the one that killed him! It wasn't me!" She gave up the pitiful act and went for acting like a shrieking harpy.

I only wish Vincent had been conscious to see the transformation. I wonder if he'd still think she was the sweetest, most perfect creature he'd ever met if he seen her like that.

That jolted Veld though. I blinked at her as if she'd grown another head.

I kept my voice soft, confused. "Why would I hurt Vincent? I'd have killed myself before I ever…"

"You shot him!" She thrashed against the Turks that held her. "You were jealous because he loved me and wanted me to run away with him."

She overplayed her hand. The Turks there knew me and Vincent. They were the same ones that would come by our place for drinks after work. They had seen us together, seen how each of us was devoted to the other, seen how I would do nearly anything for him if it made him happy. If she had just shut her mouth after revealing that I was the one to kill Vincent, I might have had problems, but accusing me of being jealous of **Vincent**? Saying that Vincent was going to run away with **her**? That Vincent loved **her** and that** I** loved her and we were involved in some crazed love triangle after only a short time in her glorious presence? That I killed Vincent over **her**?

The Turks looked disgusted. Veld turned away, patting my shoulder comfortingly. "I see." He looked up at Vincent's still form. "Take the bitch back to her room." He waved for them to remove her. "I have enough problems without a lying shrew screaming."

I admit, I used to like Veld, before his soul died.

I stood watching Vincent's still face, trying to memorize it one last time. I knew I would have to release him to the Turks. My small stall was only that. At that point, I doubted that they'd done more than examine his corpse to see what Jenova did to a body after death. Veld stayed with me for awhile, but then left to attend to his duties.

"Vincent." I walked up the scaffolding till I was on the same level as the tank. "Vincent, I am so sorry. I should have known. I should have known..."

It might have ended there. In a few moments, Veld would come back and I would have to release him. He would have been taken from the mako tank and transported back to Midgar. There he would have lain in his tomb until the Chaos gene inside him matured and he would have woken to destroy this poor world.

I was just stepping back, hearing Veld's footsteps at the door, when Vincent's body thrashed. I jumped back startled, falling down the metal steps, with a terrified yell.

"Hojo!" Veld ran into the room with a couple of Turks at his heels, their weapons drawn.

My eyes were glued to the tank as Vincent's body convulsed again, transforming into the grey skinned, spiked haired monster I had seen before. The transformation only lasted a second (I know now that the Chaos gene was still not fully capable of maintaining itself in Vincent's weakened body.) Veld and the Turks were standing at the door, stunned. I could only scream as I sprawled on the floor watching Vincent slowly fade back into his normal form.

Again, it could have ended there. I could have just figured out a way to destroy Vincent's body and it would have ended there, but it didn't. I was laying at the foot of the platform, my hands pressed over my mouth in a desperate attempt to keep in the screams that bubbled out of my throat, when I saw it. Vincent opened his eyes and looked at me. He looked lost, confused, hurt, as if he was in terrible pain, but didn't know how it had happened. As if he was still locked in that moment that I had shot him.

"Planet." Veld breathed in horror, "He's still alive."

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	10. Broken Toys

**Once a Man**

Chapter 10: Broken Toys

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Seven months. Vincent had been alive and in pain for seven months while Gast and the ever beloved Lucrecia used him like a lab rat.

How can he claim to love such a creature? How can he look at her with anything except complete loathing?

Oh, Planet. Seven months of living his own death, but never dying.

And he has the nerve to say I'm the one responsible for his suffering.

Veld had to pick me up and drag me out of that lab. I'd gone back to my previous past-time of screaming my head off hysterically, and he'd come to the conclusion I'd be happier if I continued my new hobby in the privacy of my room. I had a jolly time of it, curled in a chair seeing Vincent's eyes opening again, and again. And I'd had the stupid notion that my mind had been as broken as it could get. That was the last time I made that mistake. I figure the human mind has unlimited potential, therefore it has unlimited potential to break in new and creative ways.

I wonder if I should make a list.

It was well past sundown when I finally managed to stop. My voice had long since given up, but that didn't mean my mind couldn't continue to scream and try to drag my abused voice box along with it. I spent the rest of the night in the chair, shaking, still seeing Vincent's horrified, pain filled eyes looking at me.

You don't know how close Sephiroth came to not being born. If I had been able to get to my feet and find the door, I would have killed her for what she and Gast had done. It would have destroyed me since I would have killed the baby, but my mind wasn't working well enough for me to say I wouldn't have done it anyway.

I'm sure Avalanche would have preferred that end: Sephiroth and I dead thirty years ago. But then, if that had happened, there wouldn't have been an Avalanche. Vincent would have destroyed humanity before most of them were even conceived. There wouldn't even have been a Planet for them to run around saving. I doubt they'd be willing to say thank you.

Ungrateful lot.

By morning, I was mostly functional, had repressed most of my urge to kill her, and was back up and ready to do something, anything to help Vincent. I wobbled my way downstairs where people were still racing around. Veld was directing them like an overworked traffic cop, waving his cup of coffee as he directed rushing people around the mansion.

He looked me over carefully, "Feel better."

I shrugged and whispered with my cracked voice. "Would you?"

"No." He nodded down towards the labs. "I've sealed off that lab. Those that were down there know to keep their mouths shut."

I nodded. "I'll deal with…it." I looked around. "Where is she?"

Veld nodded back upstairs. "I think she's having the kid."

"Fine. Keep me posted. I'm going to see what I can do for Vincent." I turned and walked towards the lab entrance. I wanted to be as far from her as I could till the child was born. I didn't trust myself to not tear her to pieces with my teeth then stamp the pieces into the ground. "I want to know when she's about to deliver."

"Should we send for a doctor?" Veld didn't seem inclined to rush off to fetch one. He seemed more interested in what my response was going to be.

I shook my head. I wanted the bitch to suffer, just as Vincent had suffered. I wanted to hear her screams all the way down to the lab. I wanted her alone, in pain, and helpless, just as she'd kept Vincent. If I could, I would have videotaped the whole thing to treasure each helpless sob and agonized shriek. "No. No doctor. Nothing. If she decides to try dying, let me know so I can save the baby."

Veld nodded not saying anything. Veld has always had a fine sense of payback, and, as far as he was concerned, Lucrecia owed the Turks for what she'd done to their leader. "You're the boss."

I staggered my way down to the lab, nodding to the two Turks stationed outside. They stepped aside and opened the door, letting me back into that room.

Nothing had changed. Vincent was still in his mako tomb. The equipment glowed softly in the dimness of the lighting. Even the air was the same sterile air that wafted through the lab in a monotonous wheeze.

I walked back up the scaffolding. "Vincent?"

He looked dead, his body hanging limply in the liquid, his eyes closed, his hair swaying gently in the mako. Even suspended in an oversized test tube, he was beautiful. I wanted to reach out and pull him into my arms to protect him, to sooth away all those months he'd been alone with them, to take away the pain I'd seen in his eyes. I would have given my soul if he would just open his eyes and give me a little smirk to say all was going to be well.

I knew it wouldn't happen. Even with my mind in splinters, I knew that much.

"I'll try Vincent. I'll try. I promise, whatever they've done, I'll undo it." I reached out to touch the cylinder, hoping he could hear me.

I stood there, considering just what I needed to do, when my fractured, abused psyche came up with an idea. If Vincent was still at the point where he was not quite dead, if he was still on this side of life, perhaps I could still save him. I would have to know what that thing was that he kept changing into, and I would need that bitch's help for that, but I was sure I could do it. It was no more than performing surgery to save someone's life. I could repair the damage to his internal organs, knit together broken arteries and veins. I could close up the wound. I could save him. I could have him back with me. We could raise our child together as a family. We'd go back to our apartment. I'd coddle and treasure him for the rest of his life. He'd sigh at me and playfully swat me away. We'd cuddle on the couch. We'd trip over baby toys. We'd make love in that oversized bed he adored so much. We'd go to Wutai and show off our child to my mother. He'd retire from active duty and become a trainer. We'd move to someplace nice where our child could run and play in safety. We'd send our child off to college. We'd grow old together. We'd doddle grandchildren on our knees as Vincent told them about pushing me off the bridge in the City of the Ancients. Everything would be just fine.

I patted the mako tube. "Just hang on. Just a little bit more. I can do this. I can save you."

I scampered down the scaffolding and raced back upstairs. If I liked it or not, I had to make sure Lucrecia survived. She was going to help me save Vincent. Veld wasn't where I left him, so I frantically raced around searching for him.

"VELD!" I ran into the kitchen, searching for him. "VELD!"

"Hey," a Turk came running, "What..?"

"Where is Veld? I need to talk to him!" I nearly shook the man, hoping to rattle the answer out of him quicker.

"Upstairs. He sent me to find you. The baby's about to be born." The man brushed me away, straightening his uniform with an angry twitch.

I couldn't have cared less. I ran. She couldn't die. I needed her to save Vincent. If she died, Vincent died. I raced up the stairs to where her room was. Veld was standing in the door, and I could hear her screaming in pure agony.

I admit, one part of my mind cheered at the sound.

"Veld." I panted. "Is she?"

"Almost there." He leaned against the door frame casually. "I'd give it another hour or so."

"How is she? I need her alive." I peeked around him.

He shrugged. "Looks like she'll make it."

She looked like she was in hell, but with the reassurance of her survival, I relaxed and enjoyed the scene. As someone who wanted her to suffer, it made me feel warm and happy to share those special moments with her. She screamed. She bled. She cried for mercy. It was a beautiful, beautiful experience. I only wished Vincent could have been there to see it. Veld and I certainly had a good time.

Finally, in a gush of blood, a tiny infant came into the world. She fell back sobbing as I stepped into the room and gathered its tiny body up into my arms. A son. Vincent and I had a son. He was pitifully small; covered in slime, blood, and other less pleasant things, and still attached to her. Well, the last was not going to be tolerated one second longer. It only took a bit of ingenuity and a sharp knife (Thank the Planet for Turks and their folding knives) and our son was free from her.

"My baby. Let me hold my baby." She reached out for him, the picture of aching, yearning motherhood.

Her? Touch Vincent's son? Not while I was alive to prevent it. I'd rather toss the babe to rabid Nibel wolves. He would have been safer.

I turned away and walked out the door, leaving her to shriek behind my back for her baby. I enjoyed it. I didn't believe it for one second, but I enjoyed the theatrics. I had no doubts that given a chance she'd do something horrid to the boy. After what she'd done to me and Vincent I guessed she had something hidden in her pillows or in the mattress to slip the little one. I made a note to have her room stripped, searched and sterilized. When I stopped a second and thought about it, perhaps she'd be better off in a concrete cell. I'd have to think that over, but for now I needed to clean up my son, wrap him in something warm, and show him to his father.

As I passed Veld, who looked supremely unimpressed with the miracle of birth, I muttered, "See to her. Keep her alive. I need to know what she did to Vincent."

"Fine." He motioned for a nearby Turk.

"Also, she's not to come near, or hear about the baby. Not a word." I cradled the baby closer.

"Not a problem." Veld nodded. "She's not going anywhere and I'll make sure no one speaks to her."

When Veld said he'd do something, he did it thoroughly. For the rest of our time in Nibelheim, no one, not a soul, talked to her except for me, and she didn't step out of a room without a guard trailing her every move. Until her mad dash for the freedom of being encased in mako, she never so much as opened a window without a gun being pointed in her direction and by that time, I didn't mind in the least that she'd absented herself from the scene. I was only a day away from having her dragged out to the mountains to be introduced to a handy dragon.

I always used to love those stories about evil witches being eaten by dragons. I feel a bit cheated that I didn't get to see it.

I carried the baby down to the labs and cleaned him off. He was so tiny and so thin. I always had a picture in the back of my mind about plump, chubby babies that cried with loud, outraged voices. He didn't fit that picture. He was pale and weak, his thin limbs moving in feeble twitches. He didn't cry, just opened and closed his mouth silently making small hiccups of sound. His small face was pinched and thin.

She did that to him. She and Gast had hurt him before he was even born. I was a grown man, and their madness nearly killed me. How much worse was it for him. I hated them even more for what they'd done, for what I had unknowingly helped them to do. As soon as her usefulness was over, I'd find some way to pay her back. Maybe Vincent would have some ideas.

In case you are wondering, no he was not born with luxurious silver hair. I've been asked that so many times by the secretaries that sighed dreamily after him in the halls of Shinra. Yes, he had his green, slitted eyes, but tragically for the adorning paper pushers that kept Shinra afloat in paperwork, he was born bald. The day I told them that, the secretaries spent the day sniffling quietly, mourning the death of their cherished dreams.

I bundled our son up and walked into the lab where Vincent was. "Vincent, look." I went up to the mako tube and held up the baby. "A son. You have a son."

He didn't respond, but I didn't mind. He'd be better soon. I could imagine his face when he woke up, alive and well, and saw his son. He'd be so proud. He'd make a great father. We'd be great fathers.

"What do you think we should name him?" I cradled the baby close, smiling at Vincent. "Vincent Junior?"

I thought it over then shook it out of my head. It was unlucky. It was like I was replacing Vincent with his son. "How about Stanley?"

Vincent hated that name. He thought the name only belonged to geeks and nerds. He'd tease me that I should have been named Stanley, Stanley Studly, then he'd laugh till I hit him with something and we'd wrestle around playfully as he teased me about my overwhelming geekiness. It always ended with me pinned under him with my mouth latched to one body part of another while he gasped in pleasure.

"No?" I sat down on the floor, looking up at Vincent, like he was a holy icon on an alter. "He's so small… he'll need a strong name. How about Hank? Butch? Duke?"

The baby whimpered softly, almost inaudibly. I sighed and got up. "Our son is getting cold. I'll bring him back later, promise."

In the week that followed, as I waited for that lazy bitch to get better, I took care of my son. I found a hospital incubator in one of the store rooms, that, no doubt, Gast and Lucrecia had meant for him (I checked it carefully for any unwanted additions), monitors to track his vital signs, and some institutional looking baby accessories. There wasn't a teddy bear, pacifier, or rattle in sight. Not that I was surprised. While waiting, I read through Gast's lab notes and my son was only referred to by technical terms like fetus, organism, and specimen. Organisms don't need toys. Specimens don't have to be comforted.

I also started my headlong dive into medicine, human physiology, and child care. Once she was back on her feet, I wanted to be ready. I needed to know how to repair that hole in Vincent's chest. I wasn't sure I wanted another person touching Vincent, not after what Gast and his loving assistant had done to us, so I had to be prepared.

I also was caught by surprise by my son. I had dedicated so much time to trying to save him that I never thought about what I would do once he was safe in my care. I confess it was probably a good thing that he had already absorbed so much mako and Jenova, or he might never have survived our first diapering session. No one told me that the new, plastic diapers didn't need to be pinned in place, or that babies, even tiny ones, wiggle like eels, or what diaper covers actually were supposed to do. I earned my first outraged look when I ignorantly tried to clean his tiny bottom with a cold baby wipe.

Over time I got so used to his glares of death that when he was old enough to actually back up those glares, I was completely immune. The whole world shivered at his feet in terror, and I just would sigh, ask if he'd been eating right, and worry that he was getting to thin. (He took after Vincent in that department, right down to the snarling at nutritionally sound meals. You'd think I was torturing the boy with carrots to hear him yowl about the evils of vegetables.)

I pieced together some of what they had done to us as well. It wasn't pretty. I found most of their notes on what they'd done. To summarize: Gast wanted me out of the way. My relationship with Vincent was endangering his position in the company. Turks have a lot of power, after all they are the masters of blackmail and they weren't afraid to use it on their associates. Gast, seeing that I might one day usurp his position, decided to get rid of me.

He tried to dispose of me on his own –the witch hunt just before Jenova was moved to Nibelheim was his doing- but Vincent had protected me, turning suspicion to others. When Lucrecia came to Gast looking for Grimiore's son, he saw the perfect opportunity to not only dispose of me, but Vincent as well. It was even better that it provided him with two test subjects for his pet project.

We were all moved to Nibelheim and the games began. Vincent was targeted first. He was considered the more dangerous one, so he was drugged and manipulated into believing he was in love with Lucrecia. His body reacted well to the Jenova, and in a short amount of time he was considered no more threat and was moved on to stage two of their study –I still hadn't found the information about stage two, but considering what I had witnessed, and the references to demonology in some of the lab notes, I didn't think it was anything good.

I, however, was more of a problem. I didn't react well to the Jenova. While Gast was personally elated by my soon to be death, the scientist in him was puzzled. Why did Vincent absorb the Jenova with only minimal side effects while I was not only rejecting them but dying from them? The scientist in him won out and Lucrecia turned her attention to me. I was given the mind controlling drugs and more tests were done, dosages were changed, and even new formulas of Jenova injections were developed in an attempt to get my body to accept them. While I showed some signs of physical improvement, my mental state deteriorated steadily.

Meanwhile, they'd kept Vincent on his own regimen of drugs, but Lucrecia had abandoned him. This created a conflict in Vincent. He needed Lucrecia, his master, to make him happy, but she rejected him completely. Without her attention, he became moody, despondent, and started showing signs of extreme stress that brought out premature signs of stage two experimentation. He needed something to relieve that stress and lashed out at me, his former lover. There were pages of psychological babble about repression, reaction formation, and displacement, which I skimmed over. It came down to Vincent had been in pain, and, in a sad, broken way, he'd come to me to help him.

And I shot him.

I hate myself.

Gast and Lucrecia decided that I was a failure as an experiment and shuffled me out of the way. If I survived, they could look at long term affects to see if any Jenova remained in my system. If I didn't, that was fine too. An autopsy would give them all the data they'd need.

As for Vincent, that was more complicated. He survived a bullet through the heart. He should have died instantly. Instead, he not only survived but started showing more advanced signs of the mysterious stage two. Gast and Lucrecia were ecstatic. They dumped Vincent into a mako tube to slow all his bodily processes, including healing –and dying- and studied him.

The details of their examinations, to this day, make me ill. They didn't want to jeopardize their specimen by removing him from the mako, but that left plenty of room for probes, scans, and occasionally having someone go into the mako in a protective suit to make a more physical examination of "his physical reactions to sensory input." In short, they tortured him to see just how much more pain he could endure besides the hole in his chest.

They also experimented on my son. Lucrecia knew all along the baby was Vincent's and was thrilled to have another Valentine to do her research on. I, mind controlled puppet that I had been, even helped figure out the correct formula to infect my son with Jenova. I was less than proud of that. When I was removed from Nibelheim, the experiment continued and was even advanced into the stage two area. Lucrecia was a bit hesitant about doing stage two while the baby was still inside her, but after a few tests, it was discovered that whatever stage two was, it didn't cross over the placental barrier. She was happy about that, and continued with the experimentation.

My sudden arrival with a group of annoyed Turks and soldiers spoiled their fun. All of which all brought us to me sitting in a lab, using my foot to rock my son in a hastily acquired cradle, next to his nearly dead father, as I read about the atrocities that had been committed to us.

Ah, family bonding…

I put down the last folder and scooped up my son. After reading some of her notes, I was leaning towards naming him either after Michael, after the Sword Angel, or Sephiroth, after the Ten Names of God on the Tree of Life. I was, as you can now tell, leaning towards Sephiroth since I felt that with all the demons mentioned in his loving mother's notes that he'd need more than just a sword to defend himself from her plans.

How right I was…

I had set up his nursery in a room off the lab that I was now using as a bedroom. I didn't sleep much anyway, and staying close to Vincent was my top priority, so my son took over. He'd acquired quite a few things in his short life which now seemed to multiply underfoot. I had to skirt around an overly large stuffed chocobo, a clutter of plastic toys the clinked and rattled, soft toys with giddily happy faces, tiny socks that never stayed on tiny feet, and piles of diapers waiting to be used. His crib had transformed from a sterile, grey, industrial monstrosity to a happy, colorful baby bed of primary colors and dancing sea creatures. And all the while these things kept mysteriously appearing, the Turks around me remained stoically innocent.

Have I mentioned to never trust an innocent Turk. There is no such thing.

One of them appeared in the door and watched, signaling that he wanted to talk to me. I put my son down to sleep, his tiny back end sticking up into the air, showing the world the happy, little, pink bubble spraying elfadunk on his bottom –Yes, there he was the greatest future general and evil doer on the Planet- and quietly made my way back through the baby maze.

"Yes?" I shooed him back, partially closing the door behind us.

"She seems to be ready to cooperate." He nodded upstairs. "Veld had the doctor look her over and he gave the go ahead."

I didn't bother asking how Veld had managed to turn a doctor's okay into cooperation. I had faith in his persuasive abilities. Over the years I'd known him, I'd seen Vincent casually send him off to "talk" to people. The results were always sure to make Vincent smile.

I nodded and closed the door to my room and locked it. I had a portable baby monitor (Actually, it was a spy unit that was casually dumped in my lap by another innocent Turk. It had all the latest spy tools. I could hear every sound he made. With a touch of a button, I got to see what was happening with him, and it was all on a tiny monitor that fit in the palm of my hand, or more accurately, in the breast pocket of my lab coat.) with me so my only worry was Lucrecia finding that my son was so close to her.

"Escort her down." I looked up to Vincent. "We can begin this immediately."

I rushed up to Vincent, smiling. "Soon. Soon. We'll have you out of there soon."

She didn't look all that happy to be there when she arrived. She was still sick from the Jenova and mako they'd given her to transfer to my son. She moved carefully, still hurting from her not so idyllic delivery. In short, she looked hideous. She also had a thoroughly ticked off Turk standing at her side scaring her into compliance.

It made my day.

"Now," I stepped down, rubbing my hands together to keep myself from wrapping them around her neck and squeezing. "Let's begin."

She frowned. "I want to see my son."

I wondered what she had in her pockets. "You don't have a son."

"Hojo, please." She whimpered, looking tearful. "Let me see him, just for a moment."

I decided that whatever she had in her pocket had to be good, so I went over and took a look. She started to protest, but the Turk grabbed her arm, holding her. It was in the back pocket of her stylishly casual jeans. A small syringe that had a bluish-black substance in it.

"Very interesting." I turned and put it on a tray to examine it later. I arched an eyebrow at her. "A vitamin shot?"

She didn't respond, but then what could she say. She never could figure out irony.

"Now, we are going to undo what you did." I nodded towards Vincent. "If you fail," I nodded to the Turk. "I think you know what will happen."

She glanced up at him. "There's nothing to be done. He's dead. He just doesn't know it yet."

I didn't want to hear that. "Find another answer."

She tried. For the next five weeks she tried.

Before you start commenting that I was responsible for keeping Vincent in the same state that she had, I want to point out a couple of things. First, after reading some of Gast's notes, I found a reference to having to sedate Vincent a couple of times to prevent his transformations. After I read that, Vincent was always deeply sedated. Second, they inflicted their sick form of science on him with no thought of helping or benefiting him. I kept him in that state with the intention of saving him. I know what they say, and I suppose it is true since we both ended up in hell.

I worked at her side, despising her, for those five weeks, but determined to do something to restore my lover. We covered every aspect of his physical injury. I inspected the Jenova injections and the interactions they had with the mind control substances that were used. She looked into the, what she called "tainted mako", injections he'd been given which were the cause of stage two. In the end, after looking at the results of our work, I was no closer than I had been to saving Vincent.

I tried everything. I tried potions. I experimented with different infusions of mako. I desperately cobbled together the Tewit serum and injected that directly into his arteries. I tried materia in various combinations. I got in the tank with him and tried physically suturing the wound closed. I am ashamed to say I tried various mixtures of Jenova. Nothing worked.

Veld was of the opinion that we should remove him from the tank and use materia on him, a phoenix down and a mastered cure. If he died, he died clean. It was preferable than to live as a living science experiment.

I didn't want to do that. My fractured mind kept coming up with new ways to save him and parading visions of how happy we'd be when he recovered.

I don't know what Lucrecia's opinion was, no one asked and fewer cared.

In the end, when Veld realized we were just running in circles, he took action. Vincent had been his friend, and he was not going to let Vincent suffer either from my good intentions or Lucrecia's bad ones. He simply had the Turks come into the lab, drag me and Lucrecia out, and pull Vincent's body out onto the scaffolding. When neither the phoenix down nor the cure worked, he said his goodbyes and let Vincent go.

I spent this time screaming, pleading, and thrashing in another room. I hated everyone. I hated Gast for his insane mania for Jenova. I hated Lucrecia for her experimenting on me and Vincent. I hated Shinra for turning blindly away from such atrocities. I hated Sephiroth for being alive while his father was dying. I hate Veld for taking Vincent away from me. I even hated Vincent for leaving me. Mostly, I hated myself for not being able to save him.

When it was over, Veld let me back in. Vincent was laying on the scaffolding. His eyes closed, looking pale. I raced to his side, picked him up, and cuddled him against me, desperately hoping that he was still alive.

Veld didn't let me wallow in my denial long. "He's gone."

I shook my head. "No. He wouldn't leave. He wouldn't."

"Say goodby." He turned and walked down the steps. "We'll take him back to Midgar for burial."

I think that was when Veld's soul started dying. He was never quite right after that.

I couldn't say goodbye. I just held Vincent, rocking back and forth as if he were Sephiroth needing comfort. The other Turks stepped out and left us, and for a moment I had the urge to put Vincent back into the mako to try to preserve him. My mind spun with all sorts of crazed plans. I suppose the only reason I finally let go was because of the look on Vincent's face.

It was peaceful, as if all the cares he had carried were gone and he was now free in the lifestream.

I put him down carefully and got back to my feet. If Vincent was in the lifestream, then I wanted to be there too. I wouldn't be hard. I had a house full of Turks, thus a house full of weapons. Vincent had taught me many things, many of which were surprisingly handy, and amongst them was how to make a murder look like a suicide. Not a piece of knowledge I used greatly, but it showed me how to accurately kill myself without amateurish mistakes.

I backed up nodding to Vincent's body. "Just wait a moment, I'll be right there."

I scampered dementedly off to find a weapon. Veld stopped me when I stepped out the door with a hard punch to my jaw. I went down and was scooped up and back in my room before I regained consciousness. I then spent the next few days screaming –it does pass the time if nothing else- and fighting against the cuffs that secured me to the bed. Only when I calmed down did Veld find the key and release me.

Vincent was gone and I was left behind. I wandered blindly around the mansion as if searching for him. I was nudged out of the way of all weaponry and sudden drops, but was otherwise allowed to bounce off walls as I please.

How the next happened, I am not entirely sure.

I can only guess that Veld got overruled by someone in Shinra. Vincent was left in Nibelheim. Months later when I was back in Midgar, I asked my happy, swinish puppet who had ordered that, and he blinked his piggy, little eyes at me and told me I had. I didn't see how I could, I was barely able to talk, either incoherently or coherently, so giving orders to leave Vincent's body in that hellhole was beyond my scope. My suspicions fell on Gast, but I was never able to prove anything.

I finally woke up from my daze and promptly went back to my drinking. It was around this time that I suspect I began having my "blackouts" where time would skip around on me. I would wake up, head up stairs for breakfast, then find myself someplace else like the bar, the garden, or, worse, wandering outside town. At first I found all forms of excuses for my lapses ranging from exhaustion, to drunkenness, to being distracted by work. However, I now believe they were mild and shorter forms of my later weeks long stints of wandering around babbling nonsense. I finally realized that there was a severe problem when I went to feed Sephiroth and found him filthy with a fever and an infection from not having his diapers changed for days, yet in my memory I had only changed his diaper a few hours before.

I had Veld take Sephiroth, who was now actually named Sephiroth, back to Midgar with orders that he was to be kept as far from Gast as possible. I realized around this time that as much as I would wish otherwise, I was not mentally able to take care of my son. Having a father that spent days unable to do more than blink at nothing and couldn't stay sane enough to remember when he was last fed was not a good indicator of happy childhood memories, so I tucked him into his carrier, put him and all his toys on a transport, and stepped out of his life, I thought for good. The Turks were sure to find him a good home. It was one of the few privileges I still had as Vincent's lover. They have a system for this in place since orphaned children were a common occurrence in their line of work.

I was left with Lucrecia, a small compliment of Turks that were assigned to security, and my alcoholism. For a long time, the drinking was all that I concentrated on. The Jenova project was now, as far as I was concerned, as dead as Vincent. All I had to do was clean up the mess and dispose of the body.

If I had known what Jenova would later do to Sephiroth, I would have wasted no time disposing of the monstrosity. As it was, I felt that it was under adequate shielding in the lab and went off to swim through the liquor in Nibelheim. I was still being watched, under Veld's orders, for any suicidal behavior, so I chose a more roundabout way to kill myself off, liver failure. It was a goal, and I wasn't letting anyone get in my way of attaining it.

As for Lucrecia, I left her with the Turks. I guessed she'd gone back to the study of Jenova, but seeing that I was planning on having it and her terminated, I didn't mind. If it kept her out of trouble and out of my sight, I was happy enough.

It was only when I was staggering in the door one fine day, that it occurred to me to be suspicious. Sitting in the foyer was a box with Gast's handwriting on it for Lucrecia. I opened the box and found various solutions of mako and some notes. It was a refinement of the mako experiments that I'd done for Vincent but had no success with. I was more than troubled, I was furious.

I stormed down stairs to the labs, shrugging on my lab coat and stuffing the notes in my pocket. She was kneeling down on the floor looking sick when I came in. To my horror, Vincent's body was back in the mako tube, floating like the specimen she thought he was. I could easily guess what she was doing with my failed mako experiments.

I didn't hear the first part of what she said, but I found it ironic that what I did hear was, "Maybe I've been working too hard."

I found that funny. She was working too hard experimenting on Vincent, stealing my research, and plotting behind my back. Poor thing.

"I thought I heard a rat down here." I snarled as I looked down at her and around the lab. It was up and running, but the data on the screens looked different, odd. "And just what were you doing with my failed experiment?"

"Get out of my lab." Outrage. How precious. She was angry at me for catching her.

"Silence. I'm the one giving orders here."

She looked so brave, so innocently courageous, I had to laugh. It's amazing how entertained one can be when drunk and insane. I had a good chuckle over her acting skills.

Now, in case you are wondering why I wasn't trying to kill her for using Vincent's body as an experiment, I was. I just wanted the joy of doing it slowly, as slowly as she'd tortured Vincent when he was still alive. I'd had awhile to think it over as I sloshed around Nibelheim's supply of liquor, and I wasn't going to let a few homicidal feelings spoil my fun. If anything, I was now inspired to whole new levels of enthusiasm for my project. But first, I wanted to know what she'd been doing with my failed mako experiment. I was sure it would keep me inspired for weeks. I walked closer to her and took a look at the data that was on the computer monitors.

Demons. I should have known. When waiting for her to recover from Sephiroth's birth, I had looked over her thesis. While it was undoubtedly brilliant, it was also completely insane.

"Omega? And Chaos?" Now I understood. How could I have missed it? The transformations, the gleaming gold eyes, the complete and utter insanity of it all. What a fool I had been. I laughed some more, this time at myself. I looked up at my lover, wondering if he could share the joke. We, Vincent, the cunning leader of the Turks, and I, the brilliant scientist, had been done in by a grad student. We were no more than lab specimens and she was counting on us for her grade. I wondered if she would get an "A" or if experimenting on your coworkers only rated a "B ." It was hilarious. "I see. Another experiment? You're using this fine specimen to finish your thesis, aren't you, Doctor?"

I wanted to throw my head back and start howling with laughter. It was just all so funny. Done in for a graduate project. She'd even taken out Grimiore. Brilliant! Perfect! I wondered what she'd have done for an encore.

Unhappily, Sephiroth found out.

"No, you're wrong!" She looked outraged.

"Am I? Once a scientist, always a scientist, I must say." I sneered, looking at Vincent's body. She was far from a scientist. She was barely a charlatan. "How happy this fellow must be, helping his beloved even after he's begun rotting away."

I walked out, laughing to myself over the situation. How funny! How entertaining! It was a scream…both literally and figuratively. I wondered if she'd get on the honor roll. I wondered if she'd print it in the yearbook. I could see the caption: Such Fun Times! Maybe she'd have a picture of Vincent floating dead in the mako tube with herself standing next to him like a proud fisherman who'd gotten a prize catch. I chuckled my way back to my room and sat down.

Sometime that evening –I think, but it could have been days or even a week later. I definitely lost a bit of time there.-, while I sat watching the sun fade down behind the mountains and chortling insanely at nothing in particular, she bolted off to her cozy mako crystal. The Turk that had been assigned to guard her was found dead with a syringe in his neck. The rest hunted for her, but as you know, she got away. I did locate her, months later when doing research to try to save Vincent. I thought it a fitting end. She encased Vincent in mako, and now she was incased in it.

I only worry what will happen when she decides to step free of her prison. Unlike Vincent, she stepped in voluntarily and can step out any time she wishes. I wonder why he never figured that out. I know he goes to the cave and talks to her. Why can't he realize that she's very, very capable of stepping clear of the mako and standing at his side if she wanted to? It is her choice to ignore his pleas.

The next morning, I went down to the lab to retrieve Vincent's body. This time, I was going to incinerate it. I'd take the ashes back with me when I left for Midgar. The Turks were still out hunting for dearest Lucrecia, so I had to drain the tank and open it myself. I started the procedure and went into the storage area to search for something to transport the body.

I found body bags. They even had our names on them.

How wonderful.

I trudged back into the lab and went up the scaffold to wait. Of all the times I touched and held Vincent, I had never dreaded holding him like I did now. As I stood watching the mako drain out of the tank, I shuddered. The body would be decomposing, cold, and slick from the mako, no more than a discarded shell of the person I loved. The body folded as the liquid slipped away and slumped against the side of the tank. When it was empty, I opened the door and wrapped my arms around the still form.

He was warm.

I grimaced, pulling away slightly. I didn't know what sick thing she'd been doing, but I made a quick note to myself to look into it. I took a deep breath and went to pull the body into the bag. I wrapped my arms around its chest, under the arms and started maneuvering it out of the tank. It only took me a moment to figure out something else.

He was breathing.

"Vincent?" I put him down and scrambled around to his side. "Vincent?"

I pulled the uniform aside. The wound, the horrible wound I had inflicted, was gone. In its place was a scar in the shape of a star. I quickly started making further checks. His pulse was normal. His skin, while dead pale, was warm and pliant to the touch. His eyes though troubled me. They were glowing red-gold, but they reacted normally to light.

"Vincent." I breathed his name, gently stroking his hair out of his face.

He was alive.

* * *

Thank you for the reviews! 


	11. Hope

**Once a Man**

**Chapter 11: Hope**

* * *

Alive.

I have never been so happy, or so frightened. Alive meant he was with me. Alive meant he could be taken away from me again. Alive meant all my crazed dreams could come true. Alive meant that all her crazed dreams could come true. My Vincent was alive, but so was her Chaos.

I wasn't so idiotic to believe that she brought him back to life because she wanted the best for him. In all honesty, and I cringe to say this, he would have been better off dead. He would have been free and at peace in the lifestream and, with my continued drinking, I would have joined him there in a short time. She brought him back because of Chaos and her insane quest to prove her thesis correct.

I sat on the scaffold holding him in my arms, rocking, crying, and covering his face and hands in relieved kisses. I knew I had to get up and find things to help him. A blanket, some kind of equipment, a towel, anything, but I was frozen in place. If moved, I was sure it would all be nothing but a dream and he'd be no more than a weeks old corpse and I'd be nothing more than a pathetic drunk who was in the middle of a hallucination on a bar room floor. Perhaps, I was passed out in an alley near the bar and I was imagining this, and if I moved, I would wake up.

I sat there for hours when the Turks finally came back from their witch hunt.

"She got away." Andre (or was it Andy…maybe Arty… I don't know. I barely knew him since he was usually assigned to the area around where Rocket Town now is to keep an eye on Gordo, and he died in an assassination attempt against my piggy puppet a couple of weeks after our return to Midgar) called out coming into the lab. "We'll…" He caught sight of me holding Vincent's body and frowned. "Look, I know you love him, but this is going a bit far."

I couldn't care less. "Shh." I didn't want any sudden noises to wake me up. "Be quiet."

His frown became more pronounced and he marched forward. "Vincent…well, he was a great guy, but…"

"He's alive." I whispered.

"He's not…"

"I don't know what she did, but he's alive." I held him tighter, terrified that now that I had said it out loud, the dream would end. "He's got a pulse."

Andre (Andy? Austin?) walked closer looking doubtful. "Hojo, I know you've had a hard time, but…"

"Come here." I brushed Vincent's hair out of his face carefully. He'd been out of the mako so long that his hair was now dry. "See for yourself."

Andre (Alphose? I wish I could remember…) sighed and came up the steps to kneel at our side. "Okay. When I find out he's not, I'm going to take him down to the town morgue and…." He put his fingers to Vincent's neck to check for a pulse and fell silent.

I waited. This was it. Either Vincent was dead, and I was going to tackle Andre (Antonio?), get his gun, and kill myself, or Vincent was alive and this wasn't a dream.

Andre looked at me, shocked. "Sweet Planet…"

I nearly whimpered.

"How?" He did as I had, checking Vincent's eyes, touching his cheek, looking at the gunshot wound. "How did she…"

I needed the words. Oh, Dear Leviathan, I needed to hear the words.

A few more weary Turks came into the lab, rubbing sore muscles, and calling greetings. Andre looked up at me then down at Vincent. He just kept looking back and forth for a long few seconds the turned to the others.

"You guys, get up here! The boss is alive." He stood up and began giving orders for blankets, a stretcher, medical equipment, and all the things I should have instantly gotten.

The Turks scattered. I didn't pay any attention. He'd said the words. I had Vincent safe in my arms, alive, and if not well. The nightmare was over. We'd won. I was sure I could help him.

I learned better soon enough.

In a few moments, Vincent was carefully bundled into blankets and, with me latched to his hand, carefully lifted onto a stretcher. The twisting stairs up to the mansions main floor took a bit of maneuvering, during which I had to let go for a few agonizing minutes, but soon we were tucked back into the old bedroom we'd originally been lodged in when we first came to Nibelheim with Vincent tucked under the sheets as if he was doing nothing more than taking a nap.

Equipment appeared from the recesses of the labs to carefully monitor and help Vincent. An IV set up was first –who knew how long he'd been alive and how dehydrated he might have become floating in the mako. I also quickly set up a heart monitor to fill the room with soft reassuring beeps that kept me from having to check his pulse every few minutes in a panic that he might have died again. While his color was pale, he didn't seem to have any problems breathing, so the respiratory equipment was shoved to the side, there in case it was needed. Someone even found a nifty little oxygenation monitor that clipped neatly over his finger to tell me if he suddenly needed any assistance breathing.

When everything was in place, I could only stand at Vincent's side and look at him in shocked wonder as the Turks behind me whispered together.

"I can't believe the boss…"

"…till Veld…"

"…drinks…."

"Just wait till the others get here and we'll party till…"

"…that bitch do?"

"…brain dead?"

I hadn't thought of that. She needed a host for Chaos. I wondered if the host had to be mentally functioning. I tried to reassure myself that his eyes had reacted normally to light, but what if Chaos was now in Vincent's body and the one I loved was now floating in the lifestream yelling at me to run for the mountains. I jittered in place, trying to figure out how to tell the difference.

When he woke up, who would wake up? Vincent? Chaos? Or maybe Omega?

My cracked mind shuddered under the pressure.

I only dealt with all of the conflicting emotions by ignoring everything I didn't want to face. I had Vincent back. He was alive and safe with me. All the atrocities were over. There would be no more Lucrecia. There would be no more Gast. Everything was going to be fine. All my pathetic, broken dreams were given new life. I could call Veld and tell him the good news. Sephiroth would be coming back to us. Vincent would wake up and he'd be so proud of his son. We'd go back to Midgar and our apartment. He could spend the rest of his recovery in his own bed being coddled and treasured till he was well enough to swat me away, which would mean I would have to coddle him and treasure him out of arms reach, but I could work with that. Our friends would come to visit. We'd celebrate his return to us. I would never, ever, let another day go by where I didn't thank the Planet and all the deities that Vincent was in my life. I'd convince him to retire and we'd move to Costa del Sol or Wutai. We'd raise our son.

For a few days, I even dreamed of Sephiroth becoming a professional surfer and having a surf shop in Costa del Sol. Vincent and I would buy a beach house and our son would come home tanned and relaxed to barbeques on the back porch. -Wouldn't that have spoiled her and Jenova's plans to have a beach bum as a puppet? Can't you hear it… "Hey, dude, like world domination is just totally bad karma."- Some days when I'd be stressing out over how to counteract all the lovely things his mother had bequeathed him with, I would sit back and picture that tanned, happy, easy-going son that I had once dreamed of. It would inspire me to get back to the lab and find something…gene, mako treatment, bio-agent, anything…that would wipe the Jenova out of his system.

Vincent and I would have our life back. He might buck a bit at retiring, but Sephiroth and I needed him. I was sure he'd understand. He'd been playing with the idea for a couple of years and Veld was more than capable of running the Turks (which the years have proven to be true) so he shouldn't have too many reservations. He could become a trainer and work with new recruits. I could also semi-retire. I could get my swinish stooge to send me off to research tidal currents or some such thing. I would make sure Gast was properly rewarded with a quick firing committee of vengeful Turks and place one of my more talented and trustworthy assistants in charge. I'd have to make a few trips to Midgar to meet with my puppet and make sure all continued to go well, but that would be fine.

I stayed next to Vincent for days, afraid that if I even looked away, he'd be gone. I sat at his side, watching his chest rise and fall as he softly breathed, smiling at every soft sleepy snuffle, and crying softly as I thought of how happy we were going to be. The Turks came in and checked on us, bullied me into bathing and eating, and kept Veld, who was hounding them hourly for details, well informed about Vincent's health.

Everything was going to finally be fine.

I was a fool.

Trouble started less than a week later.

I had gone downstairs to the Turks that where scuttling around in their usual morning chaos of shift changes, breakfast acquisitions, and their eternal quest for a good cup of coffee. I was feeling a bit more confident since someone had found another "baby monitor" the night before, and I had set it up so I could hear the heart monitor beeping its steady calming tempo from my pocket. I grabbed a few pieces of bacon off the breakfast table and went to find Vincent some clothes to wear. I'd peeled him out of his suit the night after his… his return, and he'd been wearing nothing since then. Embarrassing things like catheters and other necessary things aside, I thought Vincent would be happier if he had some real clothes to get into once he woke up.

I began my search in his old room, the one across from hers. When I arrived back in Nibelheim, I had found the things that I had left still mostly in my room. A few things, the more valuable ones, had disappeared, but for the most part, everything had just been left. When I opened the door to his room though, I was surprised to find it a disaster. Things were pulled out of drawers, cut, shattered, destroyed. At first, I thought that Vincent, in the last stages of whatever madness had seized him the night I shot him, had done this, but as I picked through the things, I realized that it wasn't random.

A person in the throws of an insane fit generally just grabs and flings. (I'm an expert here, so you can trust me on this.) Sometimes, if the madness has a focus, certain things will be destroyed, while others are left alone. In this room everything was destroyed. Clothes were systematically ripped. Books were torn, defaced and shredded. Files, papers, notes and other work related things were crushed and ripped. Shoes, belts and harder to destroy items looked like they'd had a knife taken to them or shoved in the fireplace and burned. All valuables, like in my room, were gone. The destruction was too thorough and too focused. It took time, which a person in the middle of a rampage would not take. Whoever had done this had even gone to get a hammer to smash things with and had left it on the bed.

What had Vincent ever done to them for them to do this?

Weeks later, I found a few of his things (a ring I had given him on our third anniversary, a pocket watch with his mother's picture inside that Grimiore had left him in his will, and his gun Quicksilver, that Veld had given him as a gift when Vincent got promoted to head of their department) in the local pawn shop. I sometimes kill time trying to figure out if Gast pawned these things or if darling Lucrecia did it. Then again, maybe they threw the things in the trash and one of the Soldiers guarding them dug them out and decided to use for a bit of drinking money. I suppose it doesn't matter in the end. I got them back and put them in the crypt with him so he'd have something to remember when he woke up.

He probably melted the ring down and used it to shoot me, now that I think of it…

I eventually went back to our room and decided I'd have to have one of the Turks go find him something to wear in town. I needed to check his measurements, since he might have lost weight and definitely had lost muscle mass. I found all the Turks crowding around our door.

Something had to have happened. I shoved my way through them till I was caught by Andre, "What's with his eyes?"

I frowned. What had they been doing checking Vincent's eyes? "I don't know yet. I'm going to be reviewing Dr. Crescent's notes this afternoon for answers."

He glanced toward the bedroom door uneasily. "Okay, but …"

I didn't want to hear anything else. I was living on an eggshell and I didn't want anyone jumping up and down right now or my world would collapse. "I'll let you know what I find."

I brushed by him to find Vincent had woken up and was peering blearily around himself. A couple of his fellow Turks were trying to talk to him, but he didn't seem to be hearing them. I quickly made my way to Vincent's side, smiling a huge relieved smile.

"Vincent?" I reached out and touched his hand. "Vincent, can you hear me?"

He didn't respond. His eyes were glowing brightly from all the mako and were now tainted with more red than I could remember. At least they weren't that frightening gold color I still saw in my dreams.

"Vincent?" I caught his chin and made him look at me.

"Is he alright?" Someone whispered over my shoulder.

I nodded. "It's not uncommon for someone waking from a coma to be disoriented." I quoted from a text I had read on medicine. "It might take awhile for him to fully wake up."

They all shuffled around till Andre ordered them out. I didn't pay attention. My world had narrowed down to Vincent's bewildered gaze.

"You're in Nibelheim. Do you remember?" I held his chin, trying to get him to focus on me.

His eyes kept drifting around, not seeing me. I sighed and let him go, tucking the blankets more firmly around him. The heart monitor kept bleeping softly at me. He was now at the very least semi-conscious, and all was still fine in my world. At least until he decided to talk.

"Lucrecia?" His voice was barely a whisper. "Lucrecia?"

Her.

He was calling to her.

"She's gone." I hadn't thought of that, that he might still be under the effects of the drugs. "She left."

"Lucrecia." He breathed still looking around blindly.

He slowly went back to sleep, occasionally whispering for dear, sweet Lucrecia. I sat and fumed. What had they done? What had they given him? The drugs I had been given had processed out of my system in a matter of weeks, so why was Vincent still under their effects? I didn't believe, not for an instant, that his calling to her was anything less than drug inspired. I seriously doubted that after living with and loving Vincent for years that he'd suddenly fall madly, hopelessly in love with Lucrecia after two weeks, and forget that I ever existed or ever cared for me.

When he was sleeping soundly, I went back into the lab. I kept the monitor on so I could hear the heart monitor, and started my search. I wish I could say I found what I was looking for. I wish I could say that it was an easily done away with side effect and that the next time Vincent woke up he reached out to me with a smile.

As you can see by his actions since he's been back in the world, that didn't happen.

I spent days pouring my attention over every computerized notation, every page of hastily scribbled lab notes, every memo or scrap of paper with even halfway legible chicken scratch writing on it, and I found nothing. Another triumph to Gast's idiotic inability to make good research notes.

In truth, I was also distracted as the full horror of what Lucrecia left behind in Vincent's body began to manifest itself.

I had just collected another armload of Lucrecia's notes and was trudging my way to the music room where I had started spreading them out into piles to organize them into some coherent order –she apparently took after Gast and his lack of record keeping and poor organizational techniques. The Turks had been dropping in to check regularly on Vincent since he woke up, and I thought it would be a good way to gently prod his memory back on track to have his old friends and colleagues talking to him. I had gotten so used to their appearance, that I only nodded as I passed a couple on their way into our room. They waved back and I went to drop off my pile.

I had just put the stack down and was stretching my back, listening to it pop back into line, when I heard yells and screams followed by a deep, bestial roar from our room. I promptly jumped to the door of the music room, intent on getting to Vincent, when the door to our room was torn out of its frame and thrown across the hall. Half of one of the Turks that had just went in to Vincent was thrown after it, entrails and blood splattering in its wake. I ducked behind the door, crouching down, and peering through the crack by the hinges.

That was when I met, or almost met Chaos. I'd caught glimpses of him before, but now there he was dragging the dead body of the other Turk in one massive clawed hand as he stepped into the hall. I was frozen behind the half closed door, when he casually tossed the body to one side and started looking around for more playthings. I stayed still, not even breathing as his gold eyes swept around.

"Hey? What are you guys…" A Turk appeared in the foot of the staircase, and was instantly ushered to the lifestream, his body thrown in a boneless sprawl across the steps as Chaos leapt down in a flourish of bat-like wings to introduce himself.

Chaos looked up the staircase then around the entryway of the mansion.

Go destroy mankind, or go explore the new, interesting place that he'd woken up in…

Chaos, by the way and contrary to what people might think, is actually quite intelligent and often curious about things around him. When not fulfilling his destiny of destroying all life on the planet, he seems quite interested in the things around him. I once watched him play with one of Sephiroth's abandoned musical toys that had been accidentally left in Vincent's room, nudging it slightly with his claw to make it rock and play music. He then tried to go off on a killing spree, but by then I'd gotten a containment field in place and his destiny was thwarted for another day.

His decision was to remain a mystery as his body shuddered and collapsed. In seconds, Vincent was laying on the floor, naked, covered in blood, and shuddering. I unfroze myself, yanked open the door and darted downstairs, jumping over the dead bodies between us to get to his side.

"Vincent?!" I pulled him into my arms, ignoring the blood soaking through my clothes.

He shoved me away hissing angrily, "You… you…"

Me? I didn't know what he was trying to say, but whatever it was, I thought it wasn't more important than the recent sudden change into a destructive demon and the dead bodies gracing the mansion.

"It's okay, Vincent, just stay calm." I tried to check him over, to see if the transformation or the excitement had harmed him. "It's all okay. Just relax."

"What did you do to me?" He tried to scrabble away from me, but was too weak to do more than flail around.

Again…me? It still wasn't important. I could explain later after I knew he was safe and clean and not about to turn into a demon again. "Calm down, Vincent. It's just a few side effects. Calm down."

I know now, I should probably have at the very least tried to explain a few things to him there, like who did what to whom, but my priority was his welfare, not my reputation. Add to that, I probably just cemented in his confused mind that I was the one who's experiments cause those side effects, and you have me being shot by my beloved, years later, on the scaffolding of a stupidly named cannon.

Honestly, the Sister Canon? Who, and this is an insane person asking, came up with that witless name? Heidigar?...probably.

More Turks were rushing to the area with drawn guns and wild eyes.

"What the hell happened?" One overly bright fellow yelled, waving his gun around.

_Well guys, Vincent turned into the demon Chaos, who is prophesized to destroy the world, and romped around doing a bit of decorating…_ My mind hysterically giggled. While I was pleased that I managed not to start with the insane laughter again, I didn't think I wanted to share my thoughts either. I know Turks. They'd have shot Vincent and looked for explanations later.

"A monster." I gasped. "Upstairs, I think… I don't know…I was in the music room and I heard screaming. They were trying to get Vincent down here, I think… and the monster…" I looked around as if wondering where the thing could have gone. "It was…"

Vincent, of course, had to take that moment to greet his brother Turks by trying to kick the nearest one while sinking his teeth into my arm. I yelped, jerking away. He thrashed around, snarling.

"Let me go. Get away." He tried to stumble to his feet, but a few of the Turks promptly pinned him to the floor.

He yelled, cursed, and shrieked at them, accusing them of keeping him prisoner and handing him over to me to be tortured. He screamed at me that I was a sadistic… I guess bastard would summarize nicely… and demanding to know what I'd done to him.

The Turks were even more horrified. Many here were his friends who'd known him for years, and all of them worked with him. Each Turk, at one time or another, has to trust his fellows to keep him alive. There is a bond between all of them that is rivaled only in the closest and deepest of relationships. They may get rowdy, fight each other, bully each other, insult each other, but they also care for and trust each other unconditionally. To have a fellow Turk, not to mention their friend and leader, act like they were the enemy was nearly as distressing as finding their fellows massacred.

I felt my world shudder and crack.

I was sitting in the middle of gore, after watching three people I knew die a brutal death, listening as my lover screamed accusations at me. Vincent… Chaos… I didn't know what to think. I didn't know what to do. The Turks didn't know what to do. Andre, who apparently was in command, ordered a handful to arm themselves and hunt down the monster and got a group to begin clean up. I sat on the floor wide eyed and shaking as they dragged Vincent back upstairs to our room, screaming and struggling each step of the way.

"Get up, Hojo. We need you in a secure area." Andre hauled me to my feet.

Secure? What was secure? Vincent was the monster, and if Lucrecia's thesis was anything to go by, there was little that could stop Chaos if he chose to come down and take another bow. I wanted to go down to the lab and find too much sedative and take a very, very long nap; one that I wouldn't wake up from.

Andre dragged me upstairs and shoved me into the room with that led down to the labs. "Get downstairs and stay there till I tell you to come out."

Ask and you shall receive.

I nodded numbly and my feet took me downstairs. I wondered where the sedatives were. I had looked for them when Vincent had died the second time, but Veld had hidden them away. I started in the storerooms with my search. They had to be somewhere. I had previously checked the lab and the library. I could guess he wouldn't store them in the old family crypt (Veld, at that time, was a tad superstitious about some things.) I was left with the storerooms, the utility closets, and the machine rooms that kept the mansion running.

I was teetering on a chair, trying to reach the back of one of the upper shelves behind a rather charming embalming pump, when I came up with The Idea.

You know THAT one. The one that plunged me and Vincent straight into hell.

I was going to save Vincent from Chaos.

I had a state of the art lab. I had all her and Gast's research notes. I had her delightfully entertaining thesis, and I had my little puppet who would gleefully finance the whole project. I had an expert support staff back in Midgar to handle the aspects I couldn't. I could do it!

Wasn't I the best scientist of my age? (Actually, one of my assistants, a man from Costa del Sol named Jorge Velazquez was the best, but I digress.) If an insane twat could control Chaos long enough to infect Vincent with him, couldn't I control him long enough to remove him? Couldn't I destroy him? Of course I could!

It wouldn't be hard. All I had to do was isolate the infection and destroy it. Simple!

I jumped down off the chair, smiling happily. Everything was going to be great! I'd dispose of Chaos. I'd figure out what drugs Lucrecia and Gast had controlled Vincent with, and all would be perfect. What had I been so upset about? Chaos wasn't a problem that couldn't be overcome. He was a nuisance. Vincent was just confused from that witch's brew she'd poured into his veins. He still loved me.

Well, first things first, I needed to find out what kind of drugs she'd given him. I huffed a bit when I realized that I'd put all her notes upstairs in the music room, but then I shrugged and went to the lab. I could check the computers first, and when Andre let me back upstairs, I would go through the notebooks and papers. I could also get some blood and hair samples from Vincent.

So I settled myself down in front of the main computer terminal and went to work.

When Andre came downstairs and asked if Sephiroth's old room was in use, I barely paid enough attention to shake my head no. When two Turks came down with a heavy metal grate door, removed the old wooden one, and installed the metal one with long heavy bolts, I only took enough note to grumble a bit over the interruption. When they left, taking what few things were left in that room upstairs with them, I just absently stepped out of their way as I walked over to check a few of my calculations on another screen. It was only when they dragged a still struggling, but now cuffed and gagged Vincent down and shoved him into the room, locking the new metal door behind him, that I paid attention. I walked over to them and tapped Andre, who looked unhappy and pale, on the shoulder.

He turned and looked at me tiredly. "Found the monster."

That hadn't taken long. I suppose the lack of bloody footprints, an entry point, or an exit probably tipped them off. Still, I wanted to make sure.

"Vincent?" I arched an eyebrow questioningly as I listened to Vincent shriek through his gag at us.

"Veld told me he transformed into something before." Andre ran a hand through his hair and frowned. "Look, just find out what she did to him and undo it."

"I'm already working on it." I waved behind myself to where my research was spread out.

"Good." He motioned to the others to go and handed me the keys to Vincent's cuffs. "Do what you have to."

They all left, and for the rest of my stay, few ever willingly came back down to the lab. I didn't blame them. If I was sane, I would have stayed away too. Even insane, I spent days at a time crying because I had to be there. There is just something unspeakably horrible to see someone you love, and have them not only not recognize you, but hate you with as much passion as they once loved you with.

There have been times that one scientist or another would ask me about those months. They'd ask very clinically, as if they were only intellectually interested in the subject, but I could see their eyes. I could see the curiosity, the heat of forbidden interest. I'd brush them off with a few snarls and innuendoes about if they were so curious I could arrange a demonstration.

The fact of the matter was, it was really for the most part dull.

Science isn't an exciting, thrilling adventure. There are days of doing nothing but waiting for lab cultures to mature, weeks of testing minute, infinitesimal differences in data, and long periods of disappointment and failure.

Vincent did his best to make my life exciting. He enlivened many an afternoon by trying to kill me if I stepped to close to the grated door. At times, especially when I needed a blood sample and had to use a paralyze spell to get it, he would surprise me by coming out of the spell sooner than I thought and try to escape, only to be hauled back by the nest of jumpy Turks upstairs. There was also that joyous afternoon, when he'd managed to get the door open and beat me unconscious before sneaking upstairs and out a window. I doubt the Turks loved it, since they had to go search the town of Nibelheim for him, only to discover Chaos had ripped through a small house, killing the family inside, leaving Vincent in an half delirious heap in the middle of the carnage. They really didn't love it when I didn't regain consciousness for two days and they had to replace the door with a stronger barred door and babysit Vincent. I got a containment field in place after that.

I realized quickly, that I had to deal with Chaos before I dealt with anything else. The more time passed, the more Vincent began showing signs of being taken over by the demon. At first, it was just his temper and perhaps Chaos was responsible for his continued amnesia. Vincent became volatile and destructive. He'd destroy things if you gave them to him. Food, instead of being eaten, would be thrown, mostly at me along with the tray or bowl the food arrived in. Clothes would be shredded. Blankets, mattresses, pillows, books, games, and any other comfort item I'd give him would be smashed, or torn to pieces and shoved out between the bars of the bars of the door or thrown. Vincent would spend hours screaming insults, hurtling taunts, or cursing me in language he'd never have used before. Later, more of his personal habits began to change. He became less vocal and dirtier. He'd snarl instead of talk. He'd defecate in the corner of his cell instead of use the small toilet I'd gotten a workman to install when I realized that Vincent would be staying in that room for quite a while. He wouldn't change his clothes and sometimes would soil himself. His hair grew matted and he refused to wash.

I became desperate. I ransacked Grimiore's research, searching for something to counter these effects. I reworked mako experiments in a desperate effort to purify the tainted mako that transferred Chaos into Vincent. My assistants back in Midgar came up with a psychotropic that separated the mind into pieces. They had tested this by somehow combining a normal frog and an underlizard with a combine materia then separating the two by using this drug and putting the underlizard into a mako crystal. Theoretically, with this drug, I could separate Chaos from Vincent's mind and bind Chaos into a crystal as a new summon materia.

It ended up separating Vincent's mind into Vincent, Chaos, and four beings that were combinations of the two. I managed to get the smallest and weakest one into mako, but the three stronger ones: Galian, Deathgigas, and Hellmasker, couldn't be contained. I didn't even try to contain Chaos.

Isn't it lovely. Vincent and Chaos had kids. I nearly went to Midgar and killed my research assistants for that little present.

In a way it did help. Instead of turning into Chaos, he'd sometimes turn into a large purple dog, or one of two monster movie rejects. I knew my movie fetish would come back to haunt me, but even I couldn't guess it would bite me on the ass like that.

Vincent continued to deteriorate. He stopped all talking and huddled in his room, glaring at me with red, mad eyes that rarely had any comprehension in them. If approached he'd either mindlessly attack, or cringe into a corner whimpering like a beaten animal. He didn't respond to even the simplest of directions. He had to be pulled whining from his room like a dog and dragged into a shower to be bathed. His room had to be hosed out like a kennel. He'd hide in the corners. He shrank or darted around in a panic at loud noises or unexpected movement.

I finally resorted to sedating him. Andre was convinced to give me back those medicines and Vincent became a drugged zombie. He'd sit in his cell and rock back and forth staring at nothing. I tried having him come out and be in the lab with me, but he'd only sit on the floor, or scuttle behind furniture and hide. Sometimes, if I was very quiet and moved slowly, I could persuade him to come and cuddle in my arms for a few moments while I stroked his hair.

I came up with a new treatment, g-genes. For a few hopeful weeks, it looked like it worked. Vincent started talking again. He kept himself clean. He even started asking for showers and combing his hair. I weaned him off the sedatives and his behavior stayed stable and even improved. He asked for books and would occasionally sit with his back against the door talking to me about what he was reading. I was ecstatic. It ended with Vincent tearing the barred door off its hinges and killing three Turks while I was off taking a celebratory shower and had left the containment field off since I hadn't needed it for so long.

The door was replaced with an even stronger one and Vincent smirked happily.

"Fooled you, asshole." He grinned, his eyes glowing golden in the dimness of his room.

I went back to work.

Since the g-genes had produced the best effect, I concentrated on those. Vincent became sneaky and deadly. I always had bruises, cuts, and the occasional broken bone. The Turks that still remained stayed out of reach or only approached Vincent's door with drawn weapons. I did insist on their using tranquilizers, but I wasn't always sure they hadn't loaded real ammunition in their guns. I resorted to having to use a tranquilizer dart to do even the most routine things such as draw blood, check his vital signs, or even care for him.

I finally came up with a combination of g-genes and mako that sent Chaos and his offspring into retreat. The problem was that it nearly killed Vincent. He became feverish and delusional. He ranted at me for hours without once using a recognizable word. His temperature skyrocketed. He cried and curled up in a terrified ball on the floor. He flung himself against walls, hurting himself, but refused to stop. Terrified, I sedated him and spent days sitting on the floor carefully spooning medicine into him to bring down his temperature and soothing him as he thrashed around. I discarded that combination of medicine and tried to find some kind of variation that would destroy Chaos but wouldn't endanger Vincent.

I might have gone on like this for years, but I couldn't. Vincent couldn't take it. I couldn't take it. Even with nothing but sedatives in his system, he was wasting away. He'd lost weight to the point I could see each one of his vertebrae. His skin, which had never regained its natural golden-tan color, became grayish and hung off his bones lifelessly. His eyes looked shrunken. He'd gone back to being like an animal in a cage, whining, snarling, unreasoning, violent.

In the end, I sat outside his door and cried like a child. I couldn't save him. Unsedated, he was frightened, unpredictable, murderous, and demonic. Sedated, he was little more than a vegetable. While I had, in my experiments, improved his physical ability to heal, his mind was gone. The moody, loving, devious, caring Vincent that I loved was dead and had been dead since the first weeks in Nibelheim. All I was left with was months of horror, a row of graves in the back of the mansion, and an animal that looked like Vincent.

I only had one thing I could still do. I could try the g-gene and mako combination one more time then, before the side effects took hold, put Vincent to sleep. By this time, a mere fever couldn't kill him, but asleep he'd be able to ride out the delirium and hallucinations without losing his mind. The only problem…the new medicine I'd developed was more powerful and less risky but slower acting. It would take years for it to completely eliminate all of the Chaos gene from Vincent's body.

Decades.

Even then, there was no guarantee that Vincent would be Vincent when he woke up. There was a very, very good possibility that all that would be left would be an animal in human form.

But it was our only chance. Our only hope.

They say that the death of hope is the worst thing that can happen to a person.

I wish to differ. The worst thing that can happen is to have hope given to you then to have it ripped away only to have it handed back to you again. If this keeps going on long enough, even when you have hope in your grasp, you don't know what to do with it anymore. It cuts into you, making you want to scream and cry and plead for mercy, but you can't…won't put it down and walk away from it. You can only hold it in your bleeding hands and wonder if this time you will be able to keep it, or if it will be taken away again.

I had no alternatives. I had to hold on to it, letting it slash me open for years, but I still never let go.

It is all I still have.

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Thanks for the reviews! I love hearing from all of you. 


	12. The End

Once a Man

Chapter 12: The End

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You may ask yourself why I put Vincent where I did. On the surface it looks morbid to put him in a coffin and seal him in a crypt. It was actually the perfect place to put him-the Ancient's city aside. Few people go traipsing around crypts opening coffins –the failure seems to be the exception, but he apparently had some prodding from a sick little note that I suspect Gast left- so I felt that he'd be left in peace till he recovered. The coffin had two purposes. First, it would blend neatly into the crypt, so there was even less chance of him being disturbed. Second, it was the perfect size for him to sleep in, allowing him enough room for those long legs of his, but small enough to protect him from him accidentally hurting himself from rolling, thrashing, or convulsing as the medicine worked through his unconscious body. Even the lid and sides were perfect since it kept him from falling and having unpleasant guests like lice, ticks, spiders, mice, rats or other little beasties dropping in for a quick hello and a bite to eat. I also added a few improvements that normal coffins don't have, such as thick foam rubber padding for comfort; a filtered ventilation system that would not only keep him breathing clean air, but would also occasionally run a cleaning routine to keep him from waking up with years of sloughed off skin, hair, and bodily excretions caked around him; a heating cooling system that monitored his skin surface temperature to maintain the optimal level of comfort, and a complete monitoring system that would instantly alert me if his vital signs changed.

I was proud of my accomplishment.

It took a few weeks for the designers and engineers completed the construction, so I busied myself with preparations for his eventual waking. I refused to think about how he might wake up as nothing more than an animal in human form. I only thought about how one day he would wake up healthy, sane, and, in my wildest of fantasies, back to normal.

Veld came to say goodbye. He arrived with the coffin, looking grim as he walked into my lab. He'd always been a slyly humorous man, dangerous, but still snarkily funny. Now he looked much the same as he did the last time I saw him. The only differences being a few lines in his face and the amount of gray in his hair. He had a few boxes in his arms that he set down on a nearby table.

"Hojo." His voice had changed from the sardonic, amused tones he'd used before into a level, dead, professional tone that became his trademark.

I tried to summon a smile to greet him, but it came out all wrong, so I gave it up. "Veld."

"It didn't work?" He glanced over to Vincent's room.

I'd sedated Vincent again so he was curled on the floor in a sad bundle of sharply protrubent bones. I had dragged another mattress down for him to sleep on, but somehow he kept shifting off and ending up on the concrete with little more than a blanket snagged around one pale foot.

Veld walked over and squatted down to look at his friend. "He doesn't look good."

I painfully got up and hobbled over to him. Vincent had shattered my pelvis in one of his more violent moments before I sedated him. I'd spent two weeks in traction and had just graduated to walking around without a cane. I never lost the limp. It was just one more memento of that lovely time.

"That's why I'm stopping." I leaned against the barred door.

If you're wondering why our conversation was so titillating, it was because there really was little we wanted to say to each other. Vincent and I weren't the only ones to be hurt by Gast's and Lucrecia's plans. I never asked Vincent about Veld. I knew they were partners. I knew that if Vincent had an assignment that was classified as high risk, he would refuse to go without Veld as his back up. Veld was the one Vincent trusted, relied on, and confided in and Veld had never once failed him. I could guess that they might have been lovers at one time. What had happened to change that, I don't know. I never, when Vincent and I finally settled down into couplehood, felt threatened by Veld's presence in our lives. Vincent's death, resurrection, and illness had taken a huge toll on both of us and I was perfectly aware that something was dying in Veld as we looked at Vincent's broken form.

"Got something for him." Veld turned away and headed back to the boxes he'd brought in.

I limped slowly back to my seat as he opened the box and held up what looked to be like a metal weapon.

You've seen it, so I won't coyly dance around it. It's that gauntlet he wears everywhere.

I really hope he isn't sleeping with it still. Vincent is a rather restless sleeper and the bedding he'd shred with that thing must be what keeps him so poor he can't afford new clothes.

He brought it over to me and set it down. "Battle glove." He nodded to it then nodded to Vincent. "He designed it for close combat."

I picked it up. It was surprisingly light and, I found much to my and my finger's surprise, sharp. "He designed it? He never liked knives."

Veld shrugged. "It's a good secondary weapon." He tapped the plates. "Armor for protection and blades for defense."

It clattered in my hands as I turned it over.

"It's his." Veld turned away to get the second box. "Who knows what he'll wake up to. It'll give him something…just in case."

Just in case he wasn't there. Just in case I wasn't there. Just in case he woke up and found himself in the hands of enemies. I was guessing he'd wake up in twenty years. Would either Veld or I be alive? What would the world look like in twenty years? Gordo and his generals were starting to make threatening sounds from Wutai. Would Gordo try to "liberate" the Planet? Would Vincent wake up to face Wutaian soldiers with guns, or maybe something worse? Turks have never been well loved in Wutai.

I never could have guessed that he'd be woken up by a group of terrorists, would be promptly hauled off to shoot me, and hunt down and kill his own son.

I nodded and he handed me the second box. It was much smaller than the first. When I opened it I found a file and stacks of pictures. I smiled as I saw the top ones were of Sephiroth looking plump and happy. In one, he was sitting on the floor with a small stuffed elfadunk clutched in one hand and grinning toothlessly at the camera, his white hair a soft halo around his head. Vincent would have these too. I'd write a note explaining them and put them in the air tight trunk I'd acquired with some of his things.

"Keep going." Veld scooped everything out of the box and put them down on the table in front of me.

I flipped past the first pictures.

I wish I hadn't.

In a mad, unreal, irrational way, I sometimes think that if I never flipped past those first happy, smiling pictures, Sephiroth would have grown up to be a happy, smiling man. He'd have grown up in a nice foster home filled with toys. He'd have gone to school, made friends, played sports, dated a nice girl, gotten married. He'd have worked in a nice job, had kids, come home to hugs and cries of welcome. He'd have retired, had grandkids, moved to Mideel.

Jenova.

A tiny, possessed Sephiroth snarled at me from the later pictures. Sephiroth grinning a bloody grin with the body of a dead rat in his toddler fist greeted me. Sephiroth frozen in the middle of attacking a woman who was sprawled half out of the picture. One picture after another of violence no child under two years old should even think of. Sephiroth destroying an overstuffed chair by ripping it apart with his hands. Sephiroth with a nimbus of power in one small fist as his baby face twisted with insane delight.

The folder was filled with reports backing up the pictures' story.

"His foster parents can't handle him." Veld glanced around the lab. "They're sending him back."

I nodded. What could I do? I'd cried and screamed all I could in the last few months. There was nothing left. I had to go home and try to save my son. I wasn't stupid enough to build any new dreams around him. It was my duty to him and to Vincent.

"I'll take over when I get back to Midgar." I put the things back in the box.

Veld nodded and walked out.

Over the years, our relationship deteriorated. When Vincent was with us, we were friends. Maybe not the best of friends, we were both too busy with our jobs to socialize much, but still friends. After he was gone, we rarely spoke to each other and then only about business. We avoided meeting, and barely looked at each other if we were in the same room. By the time Veld left, we quite simply hated the thought of each other. Too much pain. Too many memories. It was easier to hate each other than to irritate all the unhealed wounds we carried around.

I set the coffin up in the crypt and put the chest with Vincent's things in there too. It took me awhile to test the various systems. Even when they all tested fine, I still found things to linger over. I had to make last minute adjustments to the medicine. I sent for Vincent's lunar harp, books on the Ancients, and pictures that he'd kept on his desk. I then fussed about his clothes, worried more about what he'd wake up to find and sent Quicksilver out to a gunsmith to be thoroughly cleaned and tested. I sent for extra ammunition. I got the crypt door reinforced then recovered with the original material so it would blend in, just in case some enterprising Wutaian soldier tried to liberate Nibelheim's crypts. I put more pictures in the chest of the happy Sephiroth. I put in extra clothes, food packs that were designed for long term storage, even more ammunition, maps, materia, thousands of gil and some jewels, personal items, notes I'd gleaned from Lucrecia's experiments, and anything else I could vaguely conceive of as being of use to him in the future.

Finally, I had to let go.

I carefully washed and dressed Vincent, smoothing his hair back and dressing him in his father's clothes. I did consider putting him in one of his uniforms, but I thought it safer to put him in clothes that no one would recognize as a uniform of any sort. Putting the battle glove on was a bit of a challenge, but I finally got it in place. I had to have a couple of the Turks help me put him in the coffin –Veld stayed up stairs methodically drinking himself into a brief coma- then made a few last minute adjustments (wrapping the edge of his cloak around the claws of the glove to protect him from accidentally hurting himself, positioning Quicksilver so it would be under his hand if he needed it, adjusting the foam rubber pillow so his neck would have proper support, and making sure the inside latch would release) then I closed the lid.

It was over.

It would be nearly thirty years before I knew what would happen.

I almost stayed in Nibelheim. I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay close to Vincent, to protect him, to make sure no one disturbed him, to wait. But I needed to get back to Midgar. Sephiroth needed me. Still, I nearly stayed, just in case.

In case of what, I never specified. Over the years I've had litteraly thousands of nightmares about all sorts of horrors befalling Vincent: floods, fire, monsters, earthquakes, rampaging rats, malfunctions in the coffin's systems, kidnapping by various groups of people. When Veld turned traitor, I nearly clawed my way up the walls of my lab one night when it occurred to me that Veld knew where Vincent was and was now probably under the control of that nutcase Fuhito, who had pretentions of being a scientist. Even at my most insane, I wasn't that bad.

Right?

I was back in Midgar the next day.

The day after that, Sephiroth was back in my care. I still didn't trust myself to care for him, so I did the best I could. I hired staff to…

"Hey, Vincent! You find anything?" Yuffie's voice called down the stairs.

Vincent looked up, closing the diary he'd been reading. "Some papers."

"Okay, I'll tell the others. Cid's yelling something about weather patterns and stuff so come on." Yuffie called back.

Vincent looked around the small dingy room. It had once been a bedroom, Hojo's bedroom. It was small, cheap, and was strewn with old newspapers. A few old clothes were still laying in half open drawers in the dresser. A pair of dusty shoes peeked out from the sagging, metal frame of a bed that was covered in a thin blanket and threadbare sheets.

"Vince! Move your ass!" Cid shouted from outside. "Storm coming."

Vincent glanced one more time around the room. A fitting ending for Hojo, stuck in a filthy, hovel in the back of the worst section of Junon. He could imagine the insane man huddled on the rickety bed and its thin mattress, jerking nervously at sounds, worrying that someone was hunting him. He'd have been alone, frightened, fatigued but too nervous to get rest. The arrogant, sadistic bastard that had hurt Lucrecia, had driven Sephiroth insane, and had performed atrocities on him had been brought down to the level of a sniveling, cringing wreck. No more pristine white lab coats, no more twisted smirks, not even a lab rat to torture, just a scared, beaten man. The image of it was almost as rewarding as the despair in Hojo's eyes when he'd shot him on the scaffolding of the cannon.

He looked down at the diary he held, his mouth twisting slightly in disgust. He should tell the others about it. There were clearly places in it that indicated that Hojo had not just survived as a computer program, but was alive and well. However, the things it said…

He gave a small snort.

Him in love with Hojo? Hardly. Rambling delusions, that's all they were.

And Veld? He'd met the man. He'd been far from attracted and Veld had hardly behaved like a long lost friend and lover.

Lucrecia had been his first and only love.

How could anyone write such…such…vile atrocities about her. Hadn't she saved him? Hadn't she proven her love and goodness during the Omega incident?

Lies.

Sephiroth…his son?

No. Lucrecia would have told him…

No. They were lies.

But seductive ones…

The wry humor. The pain. The demented logic.

If this diary was ever read by someone who didn't know the truth…

Vincent turned out of the room and stalked down the hall, tucking the diary into the folds of his cloak, hiding it.

He would keep it. Hide it. No on needed to know. He'd point out other evidence to prove Hojo was alive and still roving the Planet. The diary was his. No one needed to ever read those terrible lies about Lucrecia and Professor Gast. It was better off in his possession. He'd study it. If it had any important information, he'd find a way to pass it along without letting anyone see the original copy or its full contents.

Even if it contained nothing but lies, the dairy was his.

FINI

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AN: I'm going to end it now. Thank you for reading this. I'm already working on _Now a Monster_ and will be posting the first chapter soon. I really was having trouble enjoying writing the last few chapters of this. As you can see, I've tried to stay in cannon as much as I possibly could. I twisted a few things here and there to fit the story line, but I hope not too severely. However, staying in cannon made me write pure tragedy, which I don't love. I just couldn't realistically make Hojo think or say snippy, sarcastic comments when talking about Vincent degenerating and becoming feral. The next story will bring back the other Hojo since it will be post Dirge of Cerberus and I don't have to follow cannon anymore. Please review and tell me what you think of the story overall. I really appreciate constructive feedback. 


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